


You look like a movie, you sound like a song.

by raconteurhan



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 17:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 57,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8499142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raconteurhan/pseuds/raconteurhan
Summary: A reuploaded and unfinished RaconteurHan Original Piece.





	1. Prologue

Everyone is creative.

 

Every person has the capacity to create different art forms yet not all of them thrive off of it. People who thrive off creativity are the ones with the capability to turn even the worst of all days into the brightest of portraits. And these people, those who dabble in discovery of their own talent, rely on others who do the same. You simply just cannot have a pencil pusher with someone who would use aforementioned pencils to sketch something fantastic. You need a writer and an actress so the actress can act and the writer can write about it; it’s a simple enough feat but it’s the little fact that they complement each other.

 

 Just like how Harry did so for Zayn. What Harry could illustrate with his words, vocally or written in some paragraph in his iphone notes, Zayn could do the same but with the flick of a brush or scratch of a pen. They worked well together because a person with a brain that’s overflowing with ideas, ideas that only they can carry out with their own god given talent, needs a person who can stand by them. Stand by them in times on mania, when they’re screaming their head off because the shot they took isn’t up to their standard because of the slight blur in the background at 3:12am or when they can’t form a sentence in the right way their perfectionist mind has guided them to do so.

 

Being creative is a madness of sorts and everyone knows those who are mad need others, afflicted with the very same madness, so to mellow out their own.

 

Madness breeds madness but creativity does it even better.


	2. Chapter 1

Zayn was a prick.

 

Mila decided this as she wrapped her lips around the bottle, hollowing her cheeks as she took two long gulps of beer. When she had stumbled into the bar, already buzzing from having smoked with Zayn less than an hour ago as he waited for his boyfriend, she had been swamped by the fresh faced eighteen year olds who for some reason were still eager to be attending further education after freshers week. She sighed, pressing her head to the wood of the bar and inhaling the general aroma of alcohol. Two girls had just sat down beside her and started discussing in obnoxiously bubbly tones just how fit their lecturer was. Mila scoffed, she was rightfully done with the batch of kids. After that little shit decided to start some pathetic feud with her on the Open Day, Mila was set on destroying each and every single one of them.

 

And that was why Zayn Malik was a prick.

 

How dare he invite Mila to a place he knew would be filled with the little terrors after what had happened with that fucker Perry? The bitch was costing her two years of work simply because Mila maybe called them a cunt on their first day. Maybe. So now the entirety of first year drama students were denying Mila the chance to use them as models for the January Show to be contenders for the Graduate show. But in spite of how shit awful their week had been, or just the past seven hours, she wasn’t going to succumb to any meagre form of mediocre sadness. You can’t just transfer from one country to another without growing some major balls. Mila wasn’t going to be brought down by the likes of the drama departments’ peasant revolt. She’s made of tougher stuff, she was and still is, she doesn’t need to care about the kid who was singing a mellowed out version of Beyonce’s 'Baby boy' because she didn’t care, is the thing. Unlike the majority of people around her, she was not hyped off her talent, or still reeling with the compliments that her high school teachers would give them. But there she was, at the bar, Zayn had said something about his boyfriend, Harry, performing and she’s a good friend so she had turned up to find Zayn and applaud for a boy she had only met in the background of phone calls and snapchat videos.

 

“Hey, man,” Zayn slid next to her, nudging her shoulder with his as he took the half empty bottle from in front of her and dragged it to his own lips.

“Heya, Zee,” She sighed, watching his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.

She took him into a half hug, draping her arm over his shoulder so she could comfortably settle against him. Zayn was great, honestly. Sure he dragged her along to dumb things like Uni bars filled with freshers even though they were both ancient enough to get into any place in Bath or any other place in Somerset. But Zayn was her day one, known her since she had ended up at Sion Hill instead of The Circus in her first week of Fashion Design. Since then they had been doing everything together, until fucking Harry Styles had chosen to take ONE music class which Zayn just happened to be in thus causing the poor Yorkshire teabag to be completely infatuated with the curly haired cunt for three months until he eventually tried to seduce him. But that wasn’t even the worst of it! Zayn had never let Mila meet the fucker who was destroying their friendship with his alleged cute ass and dimples that were deep enough to carry enough water to save California. That was until tonight. Tonight she would finally meet the man, the myth, the legend that was:

 

“Harry Styles,” He drawled, his voice thick and syrupy, words, just those two words, sticking slow and holding fast in her memory as he held out his hand.

He was cute, in a way that made Mila want to question if Zayn had accidentally been shacking up with a sixth former who had taken a shit load of growth hormones. His instagram did not do him justice she considered as she noted the sheer shirt that clung tight to his abs and showed off a large tattoo on his stomach of what appeared to be a butterfly. But from his stance and scarily tight skinny jeans – Mila was wondering if he could actually feel his legs – she knew that if she bothered to ask he would probably drivel on some pretentious bull about how it was actually a moth.

“Mila,” She smiled at him, taking the bottle back from his boyfriend, “So you’re Zoom Zoom’s mistress?”

“Zoom Zoom?” Zayn quirked his eyebrow, the one that had a chunk taken out of it after he had lost a bet with Caroline.  

His lips quirked before his voice, his practically monotone and verbal version of a deadpan voice, enunciated, “I guess you could call me Zoom Zoom’s mistress,” Harry threw his head back laughing, the scarf around his neck moving so she could see the purple bruises on the column of his neck.

Nice work Zoom, Mila smirked into the bottle as she let the two boys’ conversation was out under the sound of four kids tuning instruments and testing their vocals on the stage. She had recognised one of them, Ashton, from hanging around the art building with his girlfriend who often did modelling for the Fashion students. On the contrary the other two, one with dyed hair and the other with some blonde quiff; she hadn’t seen around campus but the tanned muscular boy with a fluffy fringe she had seen hanging around with that anusface Orla.

 

“Bro,” Zayn addressed Mila, bringing her back from thoughts of taking Harry’s silk scarf from his neck and building a noose for herself to get her away from the disgusting level of cuteness he and Zayn were oozing.

“Mm,” She said, handing over the cash for another beer as the throbbing sensation from the band’s music sent vibration throughout the whole bar.

She lifted her head up to look up at Zayn, his long lashes touching his pretty slanted cheekbones as he seemed to be getting so close to Harry that Mila couldn’t tell where Zayn ended and Harry begun. It was like some never ending mess of black shirts, skinny jeans and trendy haircuts. According to the brief buzzwords she had picked up between his and Zayn’s conversation, with the amount of first years applying to perform that night Harry hadn’t had a chance to sign up to perform but was apparently playing guitar with one of his childhood friends after the “pop punk” band that were playing.

“Wanna sit with us?” Harry asked, nodding his head towards one of the tables near the stage, the stage that took up most of the establishment but this was the bar closest to Bath’s Arts College so there was that glaringly obvious reason.

She shrugged; it wasn’t like she had any better offers. Aside from Zayn her amount of friends was horribly lacking. It wasn’t that Mila couldn’t make it friends; it was more that she preferred keeping her company to a select exceptional few. Unlike Harry, it seemed, as she got closer to the rather crowded table – or rather tables since it seemed the group had pulled three tables together just so they could sit with each other. Mila groaned, co-dependent friends to this extent were sickening. Zayn pulled a chair over for Mila since his squad hadn’t been inspecting an intruder.

“And he wore this fuck ugly headband!” One of them laughed, long brunette hair covering their face and a limp wristed hand covering their mouth.

Whatever the context was to their comment resulted in the whole group, even the band who had just been playing and were now meandering back to sit amongst them, started cackling. Awkwardly, Mila start laughing as she sat, swinging her legs out and looping an arm over the back of the chair so to reposition herself slightly closer to Zayn, with her thigh rubbing against his.

“Our girl’s up now, isn’t she?” A blonde boy with blue eyes and a cute chin asked.

“Yep,” Harry nodded, winking at him.

“Who?” Mila let her curiosity get the better of her as her voice projected before she could stop herself.

That was when everyone lifted their heads to focus on her; a few of them looked like they hadn’t even noticed her arrival. As though that damned brunette kid was such a magnetic enigma that even the fact three new people had joined them had gone unnoticed.

 

“Oh yeah, this is Mila,” Zayn grinned, slapping her hard on the back, twice.

People around the tables started introducing themselves. Next to Harry, on the not occupied by Zayn side, was the blonde boy in the baseball shirt was Niall Horan; he seemed friendly enough like the sort of kid who would laugh at anyone’s jokes. The kid next to him, Quinton Fae, was tall, even when he was sat down Mila could tell the guy was tall and seemed to be pretty friendly with the brunette at the end of the table since he kept flashing smiles their way even though they seemed more interested in the glass of whatever in front of them. But he also was pretty close to an undeniably gorgeous girl with full lips and hair that was such light glossy brown it could have been mistaken for blonde, she looked like a supermodel but she was so intimidating beautiful that Mila felt too nervous to listen to more than just her name, Rachel. Then came the band, the curly haired one was Ashton – as she had suspected. The one with dyed electric blue hair and pink lips that were stretched around a glass was Michael as his friend, the other blonde quiffed one, Luke, informed her. Breaking the band up, was a dark haired girl who straight up looked like she could be a Kardashian, was Sophia and her buff looking boyfriend was Liam. Next to him, cornered off at the third circular table with an empty seat in between him and the brunette, was the guy who was hanging around anusface: Calum. She gave him a chaste nod, hoping that would be a polite enough gesture.

“Sage and Owen should be coming at some point,” Niall added, gesturing to the empty seat next to him.

Mila laughed nodding, “They only need one seat?”

Another laugh joined her but stopped abruptly to say, “They’re very fond of each other.”

Now she heard that voice, before the comment about the fuck ugly headband, but now she recognised it. And now she felt like getting a hot iron and branding Zayn with a T for traitor.

“I’m Orla, Orla Anusface Perry,” They smiled at her.

“Charmed,” Mila snarled, tearing her attention from Orla so they could glower, frustratedly, at Zayn who just tried to avoid her eyes by pressing his face into Harry’s cleavage.

“Thought your middle name was Elyss?” Niall murmured, following Zayn’s movement and pressing his own face into Harry’s shoulder.

Calum just burst out laughing, snickering with Orla as though they could avoid Mila’s stony glare and Niall’s dumbfound expression.

“Oooh!” Harry cooed, pushing the two off him and pointing to the stage, his ringed fingers resting nicely on his long fingers in the low lit room, “She’s on!”

He drew everyone’s attention to the blonde girl on stage, tapping the mic and standing centre stage. Aside from a band behind her, she was alone: just standing and smiling at the crowd. There couldn’t have been more than forty people in the bar seeing as it was a Thursday and the first week of the year for most of the other universities in Bath but she looked nervous.

“Go for it, love!” Someone shouted from the back, all drunk and leery, which led to Orla and Harry yelling for them to shut it.

She giggled, the girl fucking giggled under all the pressure. Mila sucked in a hard breath that caused Zayn to give her an odd cross eyed look which she skilfully ignored. She was unfathomably cute, and had this look about her that managed to be all types of Marilyn Monroe but with the youth of Disney’s Rapunzel. This girl was something else and quite frankly, Mila felt threatened.

 

“I’m Pixie,” She said into the microphone, holding the stand between her delicate fingers, as her hips swayed in this absent minded motion.

Orla and Calum stood up, the scraping of their chairs inaudible under the sound of their cheering. So this was another reason Zayn would be getting branded with a T once they got back to their dorm. He was keeping a very much fucking ethereal potential girlfriend from Mila who was in his friendship group. How fucking rude of him! Pixie realised, with the three inch stiletto no longer touching the floor as she tiptoed, that the microphone stand was too tall for her so she made a face as she fixed it to be the right height for her. Mila was two seconds away from getting an ulcer from how sweet this girl was.

“And I’m going to sing Royals by Lorde,” She said, tucking a strand of curly blonde hair behind her ear, “My best friend, Orla, told me to sing something they’d hate so yeah...”

Her eyes seemed to search the crowd, zoning in on the table and even when her gigantic green eyes – so massive that they would give Gollum’s a run for his money – met with Orla’s she didn’t seem satisfied.

“Wait Porter’s not here?” She heard Zayn ask Harry too which all he got in return was a shake of his head.

She turned to her band, nodding, before a bassy strumming became apparent which Pixie simply nodded her head to, as though she could feel the vibrations assimilating throughout her body. She bobbed to the beat, and Mila didn’t know what to expect when Pixie opened her mouth and started to sing, but she definitely did not expect Pixie to have this soulful almost bluesy tone that was far deeper than her sweet, simpering high British accent.

 

([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl_GRUqDJT8)) 

 

It was the little things she did as she sung, like the way she constantly swayed her hips to the beat or pulled the mic stand close to her little body so the black length rested between her chest and her knees hit against it. She had this energy all pent up inside her 5 foot curvy eighteen year old body that wasn’t even held back by the fact it appeared she was still wearing what she had worn for the day of lectures; a pastel pink skirt and blazer over a peach bandeau. She looked cute and delicate but also powerful and like she could take out entire continents with a smirk - just like she was taking out Mila’s usual defence mechanisms against pretty girls with curls like Julia Roberts in the 90s. Orla may have been magnetic but Pixie was fucking electric. You had to pay attention to her, focusing on her current and were drawn to her by compulsion rather than force.

“Close your mouth,” Zayn hissed his Mila as Pixie warbled on.

She casually moved a hand up his chest, fingers brushing over the black fabric until she located where his nipple was pebbling due to the cold intrusion from the constantly swinging doors, and pinched down on it hard causing him to squeak at the tweak. Zayn would also be getting branded with an indentation of her rings on his cheek if he wasn’t careful. First he doesn’t introduce her to Pixie then he tries to distract her from the vocal runs she was doing like it was easy as breathing. She gave the indie pop some a soulful motown edge with her vocal range champing anything Mila could have imagined hearing at that bar - Especially after the god awful screeching from Calum and his friends. Pixie’s eyes met with Mila’s as she had been drifting through the audience. She smiled and her raises even higher so the connection between her soprano tenor and fucking Lorde is even more flimsy. And by the time she’s belting out the ad-libs in what feels like the finale of it all, Mila’s mindlessly clapping and Pixie is ridiculously pleased with herself.

“Um, thank you,” She beamed, taking the microphone with her as the stage hands move the keyboard to be in front of her whilst the rest of her band left the stage.

The applause was overwhelming, but Mila got why. When people see a pretty girl like Pixie, she doesn’t even need to be good at singing to get any attention but Pixie had a fucking set of lungs on her. No one could expect a petite posh looking kid like her could have those sorts of vocals. Everyone seems to be whooping and whistling, as though reaffirming her potential as fucking star. Those who aren’t clapping are just stunned. Mila felt it necessary to stand up as Zayn and Harry and the rest of the group are doing as much. Pixie somehow managed to turn a mundane innocent song into her not so explicit pole dance - she fucking violated that mic stand.

 

She coughed, her nose twitching a little, “I’m going to sing a song I wrote over the summer, it’s kinda hyperbolic and dumb but hey, aren’t all love songs?”

The audience snickered. The door swung open and Pixie’s cheeks noticeably flushed darker even with the ambient red lighting around her.

“Well fuck me sideways!” Harry announced a little too loudly.

“Later babe,” Zayn said casually before he realised he had actually uttered those words aloud and was now a rather dashing shade of mortified vermillion.

Mila noted how everyone was now looking towards the door to watch as a tall man, with neat blonde hair and an outfit that looked like he had gotten straight off of a Lanvin catwalk, wandered in. He took the seat in between Orla and Calum, shrugging off his long pea coat whilst making full on eye contact with Pixie.

“Can’t believe he turned up,” Niall hissed to Harry whilst everyone else nodded or waved their hellos at the new guy.

“Mila,” She whispered to him as Pixie continued babbling on about how this was the first serious song she had ever written.

“Seth,” He told her whilst Pixie started mentioning how Harry had helped her write it, the shoutout being a blessing for him to raise his hand and do a pathetic little wave.

“But uh yeah this song is called Broken Arrow,” Pixie nodded, positioning her fingers on the keyboard and looking directly at Seth; looking at him like he had fucking hung the moon.

 

She started playing the piano, a gentle melody that was beautiful but also tragic even though Pixie hadn’t even gone to say a word yet. And when she did, Mila knew she was smitten. Pixie was right, the lyrics were hyperbolic but the slushy words didn’t even matter because her voice was notably softer, her voice that was made to be on the radio but also belted out at any and all music festivals. After seeing the pragmatic performance she had just given, this was all sorts of stripped down and mellow and Mila wanted to fucking cry. Sure, Pixie still swayed a little but that was just her feeling the music as she closed her eyes, her thick with mascara lashes casting shadows on her soft cheeks. But the soft bobbing of her head, keeping tempo with her nods as though she would lose herself in the memory of the relationship she was illustrating to the whole bar with only her words. She got close to the chorus; her vocals were something that was so magnificent that Mila wondered why any other musician had shown up that night when Pixie was obviously the best.

“He’s the thorn in my flesh that I can’t out, he’s stealing my breath when you’re around,” She sang, eyelashes fluttering to a close as she progressed with the song, as though she could now finally dare to set eyes on the audience, her smile catching around her words as she reached the chorus.

She had fantastic control; belting her notes and attempting to remain in such control as her vocals spurred higher, her tone becoming raspy but the look on her face showed it was her intention. Her expression determined as she hummed out the repetitive line about how his love was still in her like a broken arrow. Whoever this he was Mila wanted to fucking destroy his entire livelihood. Pixie had looked so happy and alive as she had sung that cover of Royals, oh that sweet pronoun lacking cover, but now she just seemed sad. Mila didn’t like that; Pixie was too exceptional to be sad. But each time Pixie’s eyes flitted over the corner featuring Mila’s arch nemeses Orla, Calum and the most recent addition to that collection: Seth.

 

And the heterosexuals strike again!

 

Of course, Mila should’ve figured that out with the repetitive and gaining use of he/him pronouns Pixie was using in the song. But she still had hope that perhaps Pixie could maybe have fancied her, even just a smidge. Mila had to train the corners of her lips to not frown at the way Pixie continued singing, covering the bridge with a softer tone, “What do you do when your hearts in two places? You feel great but you're torn inside. You feel love but you just can't embrace it, when you found the right one at the wrong time...”

Now Pixie looked like she was going to cry, tearing her eyes from Seth so she could look down at the black and white of the piano keys. Her curls dripping over the sides of her face and framing her beauty like a portrait in the Met Museum of Art. The song came to a close and Pixie just stood smiling, breathing in the stunned silence before the applause began, starting with Orla and continuing throughout the bar. It wasn’t the usual thing to hear on a Thursday at 9pm but it was just the thing you would want to listen to even if you didn’t need to hear it. She looks down at her shoes, smiling awkwardly at the cream pumps as the applause washed over her.

“Thanks,” She giggled, moving her curls from the corners of her face back behind her ear, “I’m Pixie and um I hope you all have a lovely evening...”

She smiled like she had never been given a compliment as nice as the attention from the people in that crowd and Mila found that refreshing. That maybe she, unlike many of the other musicians who had performed, had not been adorned with compliments on just how great she was her entire life. What was less refreshing was when Seth made to stand and strode over to the stage to take Pixie’s hand, helping her off the stage. He placed his hand on the small of her back, directing her towards the table he had been sat at. She couldn’t believe this display of fucking heterosexuality in public! Think of the children, fuck’s sake! He sat back down in his chair, pulling Pixie onto his left thigh to sit. So much like the Sage and Owen, who had wandered in half through her performance of Royals, it seemed Pixie and Seth were quite fond of each other.

 

Eventually, people stopped passing Pixie and patting her on the back to tell her how fantastically she had done. She was laughing and pawing at Seth’s chest whilst he held her close, sharing a drink and bumping noses.

“And who are you?” Pixie asked, wiping her bottom lip with her thumb to swipe away any moisture.

She was looking straight at Mila, her nude beige matte lipstick somehow holding strong even under the kisses and drinks that had been pressed to her lips. They had been all sat like this for nearly ten minutes and Pixie hadn’t paid Mila any attention until that very moment. And of course, the moment she did notice her, Mila was punching Zayn’s arm and calling him a mouldy fuckturding scrotum.

“Oh she’s no one,” Orla blurted, apparently alcohol made the fucker have looser lips and a shitty attitude.

“Hush now, Perry,” Pixie flicked their nose with her perfectly manicured nails before looking back to Mila, “So? Who are you?”

“’m M-Mila,” She stumbled over her words, hoping that the fact that her cheek had just been splashed with Zayn’s – or maybe Harry’s? – drink could excuse her awfully awkward behaviour.

“Pixie,” Pixie informed her, smiling.

“I know,” Mila mumbled then felt heat rise to her cheeks when she realised how creepy that sounded, for a moment she floundered, eyes wide and lips moving around invisible words, “I mean you uh, you just said... you said your name at the beginning of the performance...”

Zayn stifled a laugh causing Mila to lengthen the already miles long torture list she had planned for him. Zayn Malik by all means and purposes was a fucking prick. What sort of piece of shit best friend a) doesn’t tell you about their hot friends and b) laughs at you when you inevitably drool over the said hot friend. But most of all, how dare he be there flaunting his own relationship with Harry when Mila was very much forever alone. Shit, even using the term forever alone was fucking devastating.

 

Pixie nodded, tilting her head down so her curls tickled her body. On most people, curls could look messy and like they didn’t know how to handle them. On Harry they looked like he was reaching the most extreme of hipster #goals. But on Pixie she looked like a goddess, like an elfin princess who also went to all the most high end clubs and splashed money on Maserati’s. She was a next level oxymoron. And it didn’t help Mila’s fantasies about her hair when Seth started running his fingers through it. She clenched her jaw.

 

“So what do you study?” Pixie asked conversationally, her voice carrying across the length of three tables just to get to Mila.

“Fashion design,” Mila told her, before adding, “Guess you study some form of music?”

“Commercial,” Pixie confirmed, her eyes lighting up, “So you like design... clothes? Or are you more into the industry?”

“Both, to be honest,” Mila smiled at her, ignoring Orla’s eyeroll.

Pixie nodded, leaning over to the table and propping her chin up in one hand with Seth catching her by the waist so she didn’t slide off his thigh, “Have you seen the new Paolo Sebastian collection?”

“Of course, he’s quite fantastic, isn’t he?” Mila nodded, “I think his bridal stuff is lovely.”

“Oh yes, isn’t it!” Pixie exclaimed, her smile so wide it could’ve lit up the whole room, “Harold and I have been simply in love with Gucci though! Their suits are to die for, I love the Bowie aesthetic!”

“Oh my god, I love the geometric suit!” Mila gasped, “But Tom Ford’s being so fucking out there recently! I fucking live for it!”

Seth scoffed, bringing his glass to his lips as he shook his head.

“Shouldn’t you two be talking about dresses or something?” Seth interjected.

Mila was really living for the idea of smashing his face in.

“Paolo makes dresses, honey,” Pixie whispered to him, leaning in closer to catch his lips in a quick kiss then lifted her head to look back at Mila, “Who are you wearing?”

Mila laughed, looking down at her skinny jeans and fringe jacket, “Primark mainly, but the jacket’s from River Island... what about you?”

“The skirt suit is Stella McCartney and the crop top is Michael Kors,” Pixie beamed, “oh and I think my shoes are from... ASOS?”

“You’re lying,” Mila chuckled leaning forward and letting a smug smile stretching her onyx painted lips as her hazel eyes followed Pixie’s lopsided expression, “I saw those in Victoria Beckham’s trunk show last month.”

Pixie smiled foolishly at her, bowing her head and giggling like a small child, “So you know your stuff...”

“Of course, babe, this is my life,” Mila winked gently, once again ignoring Zayn’s muffled laughs.

“I like Daniel W. Fletcher,” Harry shrugged, intervening in the conversation since he too had noticed Zayn’s frequent snickers.

Harry was lovely. Mila was going to kill Zayn and date Harry herself. Even if she preferred vagina... She’d make it work because Zayn was a prick and Harry deserved better.

“Harry looks exceptional in YSL,” Pixie gushed, leaning even further forward so Seth had to hold onto her tighter, “We went to LA to see my brother and they have this dazzling store there, I think Harry creamed his pants, twice!”

“More than he has with Zayn,” Mila muttered under her breath.

Somehow Pixie heard her and brought her hands up to cover her mouth as she giggled. Now Mila felt like the one who would be creaming her pants, twice. Zayn, however, was not as loving as Pixie since he whacked her around the back of her head to show his affection.

“That’s who he’s wearing now, isn’t he?” Mila nodded at her, stretching past Zayn and rubbing her fingers over the sheer fabric covering Harry’s chest.

“You two realise I’m not a mannequin right?” Harry asked, looking down at Mila’s black nails on his chest.

“But you’re like tall and chiselled,” Mila whined, drawing her fingers away and pouting at Harry.

Pixie’s lips quirked before singing gently, “He’s so tall and handsome as hell, he’s so bad but he does it so we-e-ell...”

“Oh Pixie, not in front of our boyfriends,” Harry fanned himself with his hand that wasn’t on Zayn’s thigh with his voice the very definition of monotone.

Mila’s heart broke in several different places, it felt worse than the time she had fractured her wrist and she now hated Harry Styles as much as she hated his boyfriend. Who did think he was openly confirmed relationships that Mila could have pretended didn’t exist even when she had witnessed Pixie and Seth making out on numerous occasions. They could’ve been really really really close friends!

 

What she had gotten from Seth was that he was doing a postgraduate masters at Cambridge for Law so he wasn’t stationed in Bath. He was in his late 20s, and had a successful law career for a few years but wanted to study more to heighten his potential. It sounded boring to Mila. How could someone as vibrant as Pixie be cooped up with a fucking office working jerk-off like Seth? She needed someone who would understand her art form and people who studied law don’t get musicians like say a fashion designer, would. Plus Seth was fucking ancient, almost thirty, and Pixie should be with someone who wasn’t a geriatric. Maybe Mila was just insanely jealous of a guy who spent more time checking his phone when his girl was literally nanometres away from his junk. He got on with her friends though; something Mila could never see herself doing when Anusface was still breathing in Pixie’s air and tapping Pixie on the shoulder. Mila watched the exchange in the corner of her eye as she started talking with Niall, who was studying Geography, about his upcoming trip to South America where he was studying abroad for his second year. It sounded interesting but Mila had never enjoyed geography at all throughout high school. Luckily he mentioned how he had some awful pictures of Zayn from when he got fucking mortal at Niall’s ‘Welcome to Mullingar’ party in the summer which he was kind enough to send to her via whatsapp. And, to the annoyance of Orla, Liam was adding her to their group chat whilst she spoke to his girlfriend, Sophia, about the VS show Liam had taken her to.

 

“Baby, Pix, hey,” Mila heard Orla say as Sophia had started talking about Gigi Hadid and her infamous “walk”, “Cal and I are going home now, you coming with or?”

“I was gonna go back to Seth’s,” Pixie murmured, twiddling a thin black straw that lay in between an island of melted ice since she had drained her vodka tonic a few minutes before.

She was now actually sitting in a chair instead of Seth’s lap since most of the band – 5 Seconds of Something – as well as Rachel, Quinton, Niall and Harry had gone home. Zayn was half asleep on Mila’s shoulder and snoring a little as she spoke with Sophia and Liam. But what sort of rich bastard was Seth to not only have a place up in Cambridge but to also have somewhere in Bath? What did he also own the entire South end of England too? Orla gritted their teeth at Pixie, Mila could practically hear the gnawing from the across the tables.

“Pixie you have a class tomorrow,” Orla attempted to reason with her, “Like first thing in the morning.”

“I know, I can also drive and Seth brought the Austin with him,” Pixie rolled her eyes, “Babe, I’m fine.”

Mila noticed everyone moving to stand so she did so too, hoisting Zayn up and draping his arm over her shoulder. How dare Harry have left? Apparently his trip to London to see some Shakespeare play the next day was a good enough excuse for an early night.

“Come on, bro, let’s get you home,” Mila sighed, groaning as at the thought of walking back with a plastered Zayn who was lucky enough to not have any classes the next day.

“How far do you live?” Liam asked, his caterpillar eyebrows furrowing.

Mila shrugged, “On campus but I can drag him, he weighs like nothing.”

“Hey why don’t you go back to ours?” Pixie offered, taking Seth’s hand, “It’s closer.”

“Pixie?” Orla gave her a pointed look, the two having a silent argument full of exaggerated eyebrow arching and pouting, before sighing and giving Mila a resounding scowl, “Any friend of Harry’s is a friend of ours.”

“Well I mean, Zayn’s a bit more than H’s friend,” Calum mused, scratching his neck with one hand and gripping his bomber jacket with the other.

The lot of them laughed, striding out of the bar at 1am like it was nothing.

 

Sure Mila was going back to a girl’s home, but the girl was going to her boy’s house and Mila would be spending the night with her arch nemesis. She did certainly fear for her life. They walked to the end of the road, Mila and Calum holding Zayn up, and Pixie chattering happily to Orla as though she couldn’t see the cold expression on their face. For some reason, unbeknownst to Mila, Orla didn’t like the idea of Pixie spending the night with Seth. Mila would get it if she was giving Pixie the cold shoulder because hey Mila was the one who was interested in her. But Orla was her best friend. Even when Zayn spent a week, an entire fucking week, with Harry before her final assessment at the end of last year she was the most supportive best friend ever! But here was Orla getting pissy that their bezzie mate was gonna shag some guy instead of having a slumber party with them. Although, Mila already knew Orla had a shoe – or rather the entire Valentino collection – up their ass.

“Right we’ll see you legends on Saturday?” Liam said once he had finished passing out hugs, “Nice meeting you Mila, by the way!”

“Same for you, Payno,” She grinned, patting him on the back as he walked off with Sophia wrapped under his arm.

God they were the ultimate #goals.

“You going back up to Cambridge?” Orla eyed Seth weirdly as he hovered by his car which looked posher than his girlfriend’s voice.

He shook his head, “I’m on leave to write a thesis so I’ll be here for a few weeks.”

Orla nodded, trying to mask their annoyance as they bit back flatly with, “Cool, uh drive safe.”

Seth smiled at them wryly, getting into his car whilst Pixie tiptoed to press a kiss to Calum’s cheek in the same way she had done to Orla and Zayn. Then she got to Mila, Mila who was quivering slightly but hoped that the early August winds would work harsh enough to conceal her nerves about the fact dawning upon her that Pixie was going to kiss her cheek. Pixie did. Pixie kissed her cheek, her soft lips applied pressure against Mila’s skin and Mila held her breath. She held her breath because she realised she had just been integrated in their group and that being in this group meant being around Pixie who was friendly, flirty and fucking amazing. But worse of all, Mila didn’t know how long she could last just being Pixie’s friend. Especially with people like Seth Porter around who cut her kisses short by honking his car.

“See you around, Mila,” Pixie grinned, getting into the car.

“See you, Pixie.”

 

Pixie was fucking rich. Calum and Orla, reluctantly, explained to Mila that Pixie’s parents had bought her a place in Walcot, one of the richest districts in Bath. It was a town house with thick ivy cascading down the brick walls of the Georgian home, everything looking so picture perfect and Mila wished Pixie was there. Queen Square couldn’t be more than five minutes away from the Circus, where she did most of her studies for her course, so in all honesty it would be perfect for Mila to date Pixie and shack up with her there since catching the bus from the campus into town was like the top of her first world problems. But back to Pixie being fucking rich. She had a fucking bowl for the keys at the door, and not just a like normal bowl or even one you could buy designated for such things but this was an antique Chinese porcelain Wucai – according to Orla – bowl that cost more Mila’s entire life. They dumped Zayn on the sofa in the living room, the others sitting on the longer sofa on the other side of the coffee table.

“Make yourself at home,” Orla grunted, sliding their phone out their back pocket then leaving the room to the hall.

Mila could do that, she sighed, sitting down next to Calum and pressing her socked feet into the shaggy cream rug in front of her. She let her eyes drift around the room, it was large and you could tell just from slight things in the interior that it belonged to people with money. It wasn’t lived in one bit, sure the three of them had only moved in two weeks ago but there should’ve been at least one stain of curry on that blissful shaggy carpet by now. The setting was substantial, like Pixie had tried to make a home out of a house her parents were paying for. Calum was making polite conversation with her, trying to talk over the sound of Orla on the phone. She wondered, maybe if Calum was drunk enough to let a few things slip.

“So who’s Orla talking to?” Mila whispered, nudging his shoulder, somehow getting past the muscle mass for him to actually feel something.

“Nathan,” He replied, wincing a little as he heard Orla’s voice rise exponentially, “He’s Pixie’s brother.”

“What’s got their panties in a twist?” She asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Uh well...” Calum said uncertainly, looking around the room and tucking at the neck of his flannel shirt.

Orla yelled something about how could Nathan be so stupid and then started talking in a language Mila didn’t recognise. Whatever it was, it sounded serious and maybe Orla wasn’t just pissy about their friend leaving them for her new squeeze. If it was enough of an issue, Pixie sleeping over with Seth, for Orla to contact relatives then perchance no one liked Seth all that much. Then again Orla didn’t like Mila all that much either so at least she had that in common with her potential girlfriend’s current partner.

 

Orla stormed into the room, expression all fired up and lips pursed in a tight close. They threw their phone onto the coffee table where it skidded to a stop as it fell on the fluffy rug and looked down at Calum and Mila.

“So um you guys want something to drink or?” They asked, breathing heavily and running fingers through their thick chocolate waves.

“Um...” Calum murmured, picking up his phone and opening the Candy Crush app so to keep his head down.

Mila moved to stand, smacking her hands on her thighs, “Let’s see what you poshos have got then!”

 

Orla scoffed but lead Mila to the kitchen nevertheless.

“Mate, I’m a Londoner and I too am dressed exclusively by primark,” Orla sashayed into the kitchen, the knot in their frayed band t-shirt visible from behind as Mila followed them, “’m not a posho.”

“I thought all Londoners were poshos....” Mila mused, strolling behind into the large kitchen that was bigger than the entire dorm she shared with Zayn.

Everything was immaculate. The surfaces clear and there wasn’t a speck of anything other than well organised food in neat little labelled that were labelled things like ‘Sugar’ and ‘Coffee’. Fucking adorable. The writing was silver and sparkly on the white ceramic jars, Mila wondered if it was Pixie who had done the decorative. Just as she was about to ask Orla, then she felt the cool breeze of a fridge opening.

 “Not us lot from Mitcham,” Orla tutted, in a tone Mila was used to hearing which was usually followed by someone grunting ‘Americans’.

“Right, okay,” Mila nodded, “You lot from Mitcham.”

“Where you from anyways?” Orla asked waiting for her to make a choice.

“Virginia,” Mila murmured fondly, taking two cans from an already open six pack and closing the fridge.

Orla hummed momentarily before a smile stretched their lips, “Ha! Virgin!”

Mila laughed, wrinkling her nose, “Definitely not one of those,” She confirmed with a wry smile.

Orla nodded as she let the last titters escape, twisting the lid off a glass jar filled strategically with chocolate chip cookies and snatching a handful. Mila wasn’t one to infinitely hate someone simply because they wronged her. So she could admit that Orla was some sort of salted caramel devil, they were South East Asian but tanned enough to be mistaken for any other ethnic origin if it wasn’t for their eyes that were heavily coated in thick black streaks of eyeliner. Orla was undeniably someone who could have caught Mila’s attention for all the right reasons if it wasn’t for the simple fact that Orla was an anusface.

“Want one?” They asked, offering a cookie to Mila that had no bite marks in it as of yet.

Mila shook her head, “Should we be getting back to Calum?”

“Nah he’s been trying to beat my high score for a good month now,” Orla smiled, fondness twitching in their lips.

Mila smiled to herself. She wanted to ask questions but didn’t want to pry because Orla hated her. She wanted to ask how long they had all known each other and how they managed to stay friends to university since Mila couldn’t even remember the name of her 11th grade best friend. She wanted to ask how they met since Orla had said they were from London, but Calum sounded Australian and Pixie’s voice had a refreshing element of the country. She wanted to ask how long Seth had been dating Pixie and if any of the other two were dating someone. She wanted to know if Calum and Pixie had ever had a thing or maybe Orla and Calum but she just wanted to know. She wasn’t sure why she wanted to know but she did. And it wasn’t because she wanted to build up some creepy profile of them then capture them and skin them alive. Nah, she only wanted to do that to Orla. Maybe.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Calum yelled from the other room causing Orla to burst out laughing.

Covering their mouth with the back of their hand as they tried to quell their laughter, in the same way Pixie did, “We should probably check on him...”

 They strolled back into the living room, through the wide halls that were low lit with pretty lights attached to the walls so that the light went up instead of down or around the hall. It was weird, Mila had been around Orla for nearly half an hour and neither of them had tried to tear each other’s hair out. Who knew perhaps Orla liked her more than they did Seth.

“What did Nathan say?” Calum asked calmly placing his phone next to where he had moved Orla’s on the mahogany coffee table.

Orla glanced warily at Mila before shrugging, “He said he spoke to the Professors at Cambridge but you know what those posh boys are.”

Calum nodded, taking Orla’s beer off them when they sat down on a couch with Mila pushing Zayn’s limp legs over the edge of the cushions so she could sit on the end of the couch.

“Seth thinks he owns the fucking universe,” Calum snarled, “How’d he get a girl like our Pixie is just.... fuckery?”

“He isn’t even that fit,” Orla sniffed, snuggling closer to Calum, “Like if she dated Har, I’d get it!”

Mila coughed, causing the two to jerk their heads up and give her an irritated look, “Har who’s dating my bestie?”

“Har who’s been Pixie’s best friend since before any of us knew her,” Orla smirked, knocking back the can and hitting their teeth to the metal.

“Oh...” Mila pressed the opening of the can to her lips, mulling over the fact that her bestie was shagging the major key to her potential girlfriend.

DJ Khaled would be proud of her deduction skills.

“Harry wants to destroy Seth,” Calum grinned, pushing Orla’s fingers out of his fringe.

“He thinks he’s a haemorrhaging anus,” Orla chuckled, smacking Calum in the forehead with the heel of their hand.

“What’s wrong with Seth?” Mila asked, placing her now empty can on the floor.

The two of them looked at her like she had admitted to something awful like supporting Donald Trump in the 2016 elections.

“He’s... not a nice guy,” Orla said simply.

Calum scoffed, “More like a complete sociopath.”

Mila didn’t know the two of them that well, nor did she know Harry that well either. But she knew Zayn enjoyed boys who were passionate, boys who were kind and Harry definitely seemed kind since he wasn’t weirded out by her referring to him as ‘Zoom Zoom’s mistress’. He acted stoic, the sort of person who was tolerable of all kinds of people. Even burnouts like her and Orla Perry, he treated kindly so if he didn’t like Seth then the guy must’ve been a proper dildo.

They ended up speaking late into the morning. Staying up till 3am probably wasn’t the best idea since she had to be up in the next five hours to get to the Circus for 10pm. Orla had already offered her a set of their own clothes, just skinny jeans and a plain t-shirt, as well as a chance to use their make up since ‘Well you’re a fashion student you can’t go in looking shitfaced’. But Orla had just lead her into a bedroom, not saying who’s it was, and leaving Zayn sleeping on the sofa. It should have been obvious. It was a three bedroom house. Well four but the fourth was probably a spare room and wouldn’t have had a statuette figure reading ‘Pixie’ in silver curly writing on a white set of drawers. She had just crawled into Pixie’s bed. AND PIXIE WASN’T EVEN THERE!! Mila realised, pressing her cheek to the crisp white pillow that smelled of strawberries, that she could do some major snooping. But Mila had exceptional self control so she would just close her and go to sleep. Mila would have self control because Pixie had a boyfriend, albeit a boyfriend who everyone hated. Pixie was happy and straight; it was her first year of uni and Mila couldn’t be the asshole who glared across her across Newton Park especially when Mila had her final projects to be working on. Yeah, Mila would just sleep and get over it.


	3. Chapter 2

“You’re in my bed...”

Mila woke up with a start; blinking in frustration as she tried to piece together the blur in front of her in the dark. This wasn’t her bed, she realised rubbing at her eyes and trying to remember what had happened last night. It hit her in a rush: Orla turning the drama kids against her, Zayn telling her to go to the bar, seeing Pixie, Seth’s a sociopath and finally coming back to Pixie’s with her best friends and excluding her. Coming back to Pixie’s house and going to sleep in her bed.

“Fuck,” Mila groaned, gagging a little, “What time s’it?”

“Oh it’s um.... 5am...” Pixie sniffled.

Wait, Mila’s brain was slow to function at being so abruptly woken up but she looked more carefully at Pixie. Oh god, Mila inhaled a sharp breath, she shouldn’t have done that. Pixie had obviously blindly wandered into her bedroom with the intention of sleeping and been startled by Mila as she was just standing there in a large grey t-shirt, probably Seth’s, and probably underwear that she just couldn’t see. Not that she had been ogling at Pixie’s creamy thighs, no not one bit. Mila groaned, sitting up in Pixie’s bed and tilting her head at the girl.

“Why are you here?” Mila asked.

“I own this house?” Pixie reminded her, smiling a little bit.

Mila rolled her eyes, “No I mean... aren’t you meant to be with um... Seb?”

“Seth,” Pixie corrected, “and uh we had a little disagreement so I uh left.”

“You walked from Landsdown to here?” Mila said trying not to sound shocked even when Pixie nodded, “But that’s an hour’s walk?”

Again Pixie nodded, inhaling audibly before murmuring, “I just um... he told me to leave so here I am,” She laughed dryly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and looking down, “I can get some more of my clothes now I’m here though...”

Mila followed the tilt of Pixie’s head to what looked like one door going to perhaps an en suite or maybe something boring like a cupboard. That was when Mila remembered Pixie was super fucking filthy rich.

“That’s a walk in closet?” Mila gaped at her.

Pixie shrugged, striding over to it, “It’s not as impressive as my one back in Chesh.”

“Chesh?”

“Cheshire,” Pixie’s tone was soft, gentle, like the place she talked of was home and not this cold empty house.

This cold empty expensive house; the cold expensive house where Pixie’s room had a walk in wardrobe and apparently an en suite. Mila didn’t know whether she should get up or just stay in the bed, watching Pixie creepily.

“Hey,” Pixie’s voice carried out through the closet, coming out like those last stray ideas Mila had that Pixie maybe, possibly, could be gay™, “Fashion student!”

Mila popped her head past the door, peering in at Pixie who was holding a black dress up to her small body. She cocked her head, watching Mila slowly stride into the closet as she stroked her fingers over the fabric.

“What do you think?” Pixie smiled, swaying her hips slightly and moving the dress with her.

Mila stepped closer to touch the stretchy cotton fabric, scrutinizing just why Pixie would wear a black dress in the first place when her personality described the sort of girl who wouldn’t wear black unless it was the last option.

“What’s the event?” Mila asked, flattening the pleated skirt as she spoke.

Pixie inhaled sharply, lips quivering in a way that was somewhere in between anxious and excited, “Lunch with Seth’s parents.”

Mila nodded, taking the empty quilted silk coat hanger and placing the black dress back on it with a shake of her head, “Not for parents. The way the chest is set in, for someone who is an uh... hour glass figure like yours, it would be kind of inappropriate.”

“See Orla would’ve just said something about how maybe I could make Dashner, Seth’s dad, my sugar daddy if I have my tits out,” Pixie smiled, laughing to herself as Mila sheathed the dress back amongst the other black dresses.

 

Everything in the wardrobe was so prim and proper; the decor delicate but also opulent with the creams and flushed pink designs. There was no room spare for anything but the clothing Pixie already owned and even that was bursting out of the designated sections. Mila wondered how long it had taken Pixie to move in because with level of organisation and little wooden hexagonal placards on the lengths of shelving with the same sparkly silver scrawl that had been on the jars in the kitchen thus confirming Mila’s suspicions.

 

“Do you have any Red Valentino?” Mila asked, getting to her knees to inspect the cream Louis Vuitton under a range of short dresses.

As Mila popped the golden brass clasp open, she realised that last she checked LV didn’t make any trunks in this faded shade of brown; so either it was a fake or Pixie was so filthy fucking rich she could commission trunks to be specially made for her. And Mila didn’t doubt the latter for one millisecond.

“I do but that’s at my home in Chesh,” Pixie murmured as she tiptoed to lift a pair of diamond earrings off a shelf.

Mila crawled away from the trunk, closing it after finding it just to be filled with chargers and other electrical wires, “Do his parents like you?”

Pixie nodded, her lips pinched as she glided her fingers over a floral pink skirt, “Dashner and Violetta do enjoy my presence.”

“So why does it matter?” Mila furrowed her brows, sitting on the shaggy carpeting that was similar to the rug in the living room except it was far softer.

Pixie twirled around, a green floral Gucci jacket, embossed with blatant quilting and gold buttons, in her grasp as she gave Mila a confused look, “You really have no idea who I am...”

“Am I meant to?” Mila asked.

Pixie tossed the jacket to the side and fell to sit in front of Mila, so the two of them faced each other as they sat; bare legs nestled in the carpet, cross legged.

 

“Let’s play a game,” Pixie offered, bum shuffling closer to Mila so their knees knocked.

“Uh,” Mila tried not to hyperventilate at Pixie’s closeness, in Pixie’s secret walk in wardrobe, “Um yeah sure...”

“I get to ask you three questions, and you can ask me three questions,” Pixie said, reaching to a small leather LV case on top of the trunk to grab a sparkly pink hair tie to tie the tendrils of her curls up in an awful bun.

Mila opened her mouth and just nodded, jaw slack with her intrigue for Pixie.

“What’s your full name?” Pixie asked.

Mila laughed, “Mila Hussein... and what’s yours?”  
“Dame Pixie Elise Ann Locke,” She smirked, “Previously known as Elizabethia Ann Parkier.”

Now her jaw was really slack.

“Shut the fuck up!” Mila gasped, moving her hand to her chest like a southern woman clutching her pearls, “You’re Pixie Elise Locke! Why the fuck didn’t you say? Wait fuck no don’t answer that I have more actual questions!”  
“Do you like girls?” Pixie’s question was punctuated with an easy smile, “I’m asking because any heterosexual girl who manages to be Zayn’s friend for three years in close quarters has some serious self control!”  Pixie was giggling properly now, pressing her fist to her lips so to conceal the laughter and not wake anyone up.

Mila was giggling too, “Yeah I’m a lesbian. And hey!” She bumped Pixie with her big toe, “Zayn’s your best friend’s boyfriend and you have a boyfriend!”  
“I have eyes, Mila Hussein!” Pixie reached forward to prod Mila’s shoulder with three fingers, “Zee is gorgeous!”  


“How did you meet Harry?” Mila asked, prodding Pixie back for good measure, “Got to gather intel for my boy.”

“Well I’m originally from Devonshire, but then my mum and dad split up when I was seven so she could remarry my brother’s dad. We moved to Hale Barns in Cheshire, aside from Nathan who’s ten years older than me anyways, there weren’t many kids in the area. I was pretty much an only child with Nathan at boarding school anyways but there was a like Country Club in Cranage and that’s where I met Harry and Gemma, his big sister. I found out they lived a like house down from me so it all started there,” Pixie spoke, her eyes staying lit and a brighter shade of green the entire time her lips moved with such vigour throughout the explanation.

 

She still was struggling to wrap her head around the fact that Pixie wasn’t just some random rich kid with the same first name as the three time heiress and best friend of Prince Harry but that she was actually that very girl; the richest and most affluent under 20 year old who was predicted to do great things in the business industry. The pictures of her in TIME magazine did not do her enough justice; no picture of her could illustrate just how perfect she truly was. The confines of a photograph, a selfie on instagram or snapchat with some filter flashing over it, didn’t allow her personality to thrive as it did when you were simply just in the same room as Pixie. Mila felt inadequate in contrast. When Mila had been younger, she remembered hearing about the little British Dame whose childhood had been lacking of parental figures since they were always working but no media source cared much since she dressed pretty and spoke proper. She remembered her gap year, having pre-empted spending two years doing apprenticeships in different departments in London shops and defining her craft; how in the first month of leaving formal education she was lucky enough to be interning at Somerset House for London Fashion Week. And just who had turned up? Nathan Locke, his fiancée and his little sister. Pixie had only been fifteen, fresh faced and with ferocious untamed curls and easily missable in the crowds of girls who looked just like her. Same wide eyes, same exaggerated smile, same fat bank account. No wonder Mila hadn’t recognised her that earlier. She had grown into her eyes, sort of, her smile was more relaxed and around her friends Pixie didn’t seem like a Princess or even a Dame, like she was.

 

“Why are you studying out here?” Pixie asked, then winced and mumbled, “I wish I’d asked something else now...” She pouted into a sigh, throwing her shoulders about in a stroppy fashion.   
“I’ll be very elaborate then,” Mila smirked; as she looked down to fiddle with her fingers, wishing she was still wearing her rings to give her some distraction, “I’ve always loved the fantasy of London. I guess when I moved out from parents’ place to a small shared hostel in Shoreditch that the fantasy died but then I got an internship at Somerset House during LFW. I wanted to take a year out for an apprenticeship but a year became two and I applied to UAL but they only let in a limited amount of external applicants so uh here I am!” She waved her hands out in a poor attempt of jazz hands and a smile stretching her lips, “Oh but why? I guess I was chasing a dream...”

“Same,” Pixie smiled, “With my music...”  
Mila held her gaze and murmured, “How’d you get into music? ...and I think I’ve worked out an outfit for you.”  


She opened her mouth and started telling Mila everything, watching as she stood up to move around the wardrobe and gather the outfit. Mila knew she couldn’t watch Pixie talk about her passion, when girls talked about things they were passionate about it made them nine times cuter and Pixie was already all kinds of cute so she would probably break the cute-o-meter. Pixie told her how she had taken two sciences and maths at A level but also music because even though her brother was well and truly making his name with the family business, Pixie wanted to be a singer. The Empire needed an Empress when Charlotta and Maximillian Locke stepped down, when Nathan went to have a family and Pixie had been an obvious choice - smart, gifted, likable and personable. Pixie had argued with her mother for months, her mother who said she either had to get married to someone rich or join the family business. Pixie had scoffed and called Wayne Enterprise a budget version of The Empire, her family’s business. She muttered something about how rich Seth was how if she wanted to be a singer and not make her family angry then marrying him would be the best option but had quickly changed from the tangent she was wandering down. Wandering down with a person she had only known for less than 10 hours. She told her she had grown up learning to play the violin, piano and guitar; with that knowledge on her back she had taken music at GCSE. Her school were very welcoming to musical performances; it was apparently her acoustic performance of U.N.I by Ed Sheeran to her year and the year 11s which had caused her to realise that performing was her thing. Mila wanted to find whichever teacher had organised that assembly and give them her kidneys. Since then, she had continued her path with music. She said she couldn’t be like Harry, couldn’t choose something that wasn’t music to study and keep her passion on the down low. Whilst Pixie had been explaining her life story, Mila gathered a pair of lace black shorts, high rise waist but demure enough to pass a meeting with parents and a white off-the-shoulder crop top that would cover just enough of the shorts to not reveal any skin on her stomach.

 

Pixie’s journey, so far, with music concluded at a performance she’d had in the summer.

“Do you have any other performances coming up?” Mila asked, handing the clothes to Pixie and ignoring her sceptical expression.

 “Nah,” Pixie pulled the gray shirt over her head after she had shimmied on the black shorts, “Harry and I might do something together at that bar but Orla and I need jobs.”  
“Make a channel on youtube?” Mila offered wiping her eyes so not to be caught staring at Pixie in her bra as she stared down at the top in confusion.

“I’m good,” she shrugged, “But uh can you help me with this?” Pixie looked at Mila helplessly.

“Yep,” Mila muttered, stepping forward and taking the top from her, “Lift your arms up...”

She followed Mila’s instructions, letting the much taller girl take her by the wrists and feed them into the slits in the top. Pixie was weird, Mila decided as she tugged the top over Pixie’s breasts that, like her hair versus the hair tie, refused to be kept at bay by her bra. Mila stepped back to admire her work then tried to find the sparkly label that said ‘shoes’ but also training her eyes to Pixie.

“Black velvet YSL platforms,” Pixie offered, twirling around to look in the vanity set at the far end of the room, “all my heels are nearer to the door so I can just snatch a pair whenever.”

“You have a fuck load of heels, Pixie Elise Locke,” Mila murmured, opening one of the sliding drawers and taking out the platforms, nodding happily to herself, “The lady has good taste.”  
“The lady’s sister in law is a stylist,” Pixie grinned peering into the mirror and moving her hair from where it tended to cover the side of her face even when she had it twisted up atop her head, Mila was sure she heard her wince as she watched Pixie’s fingers graze this mostly covered up area.

“So what do you think?” Mila asked, handing over the shoes and leaning back.

Pixie bit her lip, fluffing out her hair and turning back to Mila. Why did she have to turn to face Mila when Mila was getting acquainted with the fact that Pixie’s ass was like the eighth wonder of the world; potentially making it into the top seven and kicking off the pyramids of Giza. God if she had known how great Pixie’s ass looked in shorts then she would’ve immediately found some booty shorts worthy of a Nicki Minaj music video to get Pixie into.

“I like it,” Pixie beamed, bright and proud, “Wouldn’t have thought to put this top with these shorts,” She faltered, fingers coiling together with anxiety as she questioned, “But will Dashner and Violetta like it?”  
“It shows you’re comfortable with yourself and their son,” Mila said, before looking at her toes with the black nail varnish chipped a lot and laughing to herself, “I can’t believe I stayed up helping a kid I’ve known for like five minutes.”  
“’m not a kid!” Pixie pouted using the hair tie to pull her hair back in a ponytail.

Mila tilted her head, her hair tipping over her shoulder as she admired Pixie, “You say you’re not a kid but you’re like 4’11 without those heels and you’re pouting like a toddler.”  
“I’m eighte-e-e-en,” Her voice fluctuated as she tried to argue her point, stomping towards a set of drawers that had pretty glass knobs to pull to open them; she pulled out a silky set of pyjamas: a pair of shorts and short sleeved shirt.

“Aww cute,” Mila teased, cooing a little as she reached forward to squish Pixie’s cheeks between her fingers.

Pixie couldn’t stop herself from giggling, “You’re a strange one, Mila Hussein.”

She looked down at the pretty pink pyjamas Pixie held close to her chest, and smirked when she noticed it, “Does that say P dot L with a little heart next to it?”

Pixie’s cheeks turned the same colour at the pyjamas she held, it was all rather adorable and Mila felt fucking menacing.

“You’re a meanie,” Pixie whined, balling her fists and stamping her foot again.

Mila smiled at her, reaching forward to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and mumbling, “You’re a kid.”  
Pixie breathed in, slow, shallow and audible, eyes flickering up to meet Mila’s. She looked so vulnerable like that, just smiling up at her with those big eyes, looking at Mila like she was something special. But Pixie was friendly, flirty and fucking amazing so Mila guessed she looked at everyone like they were worth something, as though she could see the good in everyone no matter what they had done or how little she knew them. Pixie was going to be the death of Mila.

 

Pixie didn’t have to speak to explain her wishes as she held her arms above her head, Mila rolled her eyes and helped tug off the white crop top from Pixie. For some reason, in Pixie’s Mila-hating mind, the blonde girl decided to strip down to her underwear and neatly folded the outfit Mila had chosen for her over the padded rose gold stool in front of the vanity set. The whole process took an excruciatingly long time. Pixie bending over to delicately lay the folded clothes over the cushion whilst Mila just stood back and watched as the pink on white polka dotted cotton stretched over the expanse of Pixie’s butt. Mila was convinced Pixie had to know the effect she had on people and was trying to get Mila to use the glossy heel of Pixie’s Jimmy Choo stilettos to stab herself in the eye to potentially stop the torture. Mila held back a groan. She had promised herself, after what happened with Rosie, that there would be no more straight-girl crushes. It was unfair to everyone involved because it always ended up with Mila curled up in Zayn’s arms on their shitty over sprung couch as he petted her hair whilst they watched Gossip Girl back to back on his laptop that kept demanding to have AVG updates. The main issue with that was last time, with Rosie; it had been the week before her finals. Sure she scraped an acceptable grade but even that wasn’t enough retribution after being publically humiliated by possibly the hottest girl to walk the planet. But Pixie was worse than Rosie because Pixie had a boyfriend making her even more off limits. And the fact Mila had literally known her for two seconds and was already mentally planning a wedding (Nothing too fancy, they did receptions at Somerset House so that could work).

 

“What time is it?” Pixie yawned, her fucking yawns were dainty and adorable - and Mila was done.

She shrugged, “My phone died,” The perks of having a Samsung.   
“I left my phone at Seth’s,” Pixie started tying her hair up again, starting towards her bed where a classic looking silver bell clock ticked softly.

“You walked from Landsdown to Walcot, alone, at 4am without your phone?” Mila frowned flopping backwards onto Pixie’s bed.

She slid up the duvet till her head hit the pillow and she groaned; Pixie hopped onto the bed next to her and murmured, “It’s nearly 7... and yeah I guess I did.”

“I hate to be the mom friend but that’s really dangerous,” Mila said staring up at Pixie’s ceiling.

“I can fend for myself,” Pixie muttered, shuffling closer to Mila.

“Alright,” Mila nodded, pushing her shoulders back into the mattress and closed her eyes.

There was silence for a second as Pixie’s nose batted Mila’s arm.

“Don’t tell Orla and Harry about the whole walking here in the dark, alone, without my phone,” Pixie whispered in the dark.

“Okay, Pixie.”

Pixie exhaled softly, snuggling closer to Mila and using her as a pillow.

“Why not?” Mila murmured after the silence started to feel heavy with sleep and her restlessness became apparent.

“Go to sleep, Mila,” Pixie whispered, pulling herself closer to Mila and pressing her forehead near to Mila’s lips in hope of shutting her down.

“Can’t sleep,” Mila murmured against Pixie’s skin wondering how she maintained this cool with a person she had only just met, “Some blonde chick woke me up...”  
“Oh ha ha,” Pixie just got even closer to Mila.

“Are you trying to smother me?” Mila muttered in the dark.

“Only if it will get you to go to sleep.”  
“I want coffee.”  
“If you fall asleep right now, I’ll make you a special I-studied-sciences coffee.”  
Mila thought for a second, her eyelashes lulling to a close.

“Deal.”

 


	4. Chapter 3

Liam was her new best friend.

 

Fuck Zayn.

 

He was still a prick after the whole Pixie thing. Plus Zayn never got her a job waitressing at Bath Priory – one of the fanciest restaurants in the city – unlike Liam, since his parents knew one of the chefs who worked there. For the past few weeks, she had been whining about not having enough income to buy the ASOS dress she so dearly craved to wear to the British Fashion Awards – since Zayn had gotten her tickets for her birthday – so Liam became a literal superhero and saved her from having to crack down to New Look for a substandard glitzy dress. Or maybe she would have to start cooking meth.

 

She swept her dark hair behind her ear as she admired her reflection in the mirror of the staff toilets. There had been a drought of Pixie Elise Locke over the past few weeks and Mila needed her thirst quenched. After the whole walking home at 4am in the dark escapade the group were seeing less and less of her. If they did see her it would be fleeting and over a brisk walk to Newton Hall whilst their fingers were warmed by whichever coffee they could buy which conflicted with their outfits, stylish and inappropriate for the time of year, since the coffee was always the cheapest they could find. Or she would be with Seth, being held by him and being kissed by him and being his but to Mila she was untouchable. Mila sighed, looking in the mirror and wondering if she had drawn her eyebrows in too much for the establishment but hey, at least the flicks of her eyeliner were quality. The uniform was far tighter than the one at the Circus, where she did her usual weekday shifts, and was made out of a far nicer fabric that Mila felt blessed to wear instead of the usual horrendous starchy orange polyester thing she had to wear there. She smoothed the silk faint lilac shirt over her chest, tilting her head. Mila hummed to herself, she was built like Orla but with slightly wider hips and a bigger bust but still the same unconventionally thin structure in comparison to Pixie. Pixie with her practically perfect hour glass figure. _Fuck_! Trying not to think about Pixie was harder than expected especially when everyone she had started to hang out with seemed to be just as in love with her as Mila was. It was as though they couldn’t go an hour without someone mentioning some anecdote featuring Pixie and how legendary she was.

 

Zayn had told her to just go to the nearest gay bar and shag away her feelings. In true fact, Mila hadn’t pulled in forever B.C (before Carroway, Rosie Carroway) and she didn’t know if she still had the edge she did since being with Diana. She wanted to punch the mirror, fill her fist with glass and watch it bleed so she wouldn’t have to watch her reflection any longer. Her reflection with her hazel eyes staring at her, the little flecks of green she got from her Dad, in the same pitiful way Zayn’s did when she stormed into their dormitory, exhaling a caffeine high and smelling of strawberries – smelling of Pixie. Knowing of Pixie was a thrilling enough high for her.

 

“Hussein,” Liam called, pushing the wooden door of the unisex staff toilets open with his bum, “You’re up!”  
She stepped away from the mirror, tugging at the tight black skirt that clung to her thighs and showed just how toned they were after the months her and Zayn had spent in the gym working out for no other reason other than the university had a free gym for second years.

“Help me with the tie,” She grumbled the friction of her translucent black tights audible as she strode towards him.

“Cravat,” He corrected and sighed at the weird look she gave him, “Harry became my best friend in sixth form, his pretentious phase started then.”  
“When did his hipster phase begin?” Mila chuckled as Liam tucked the golden floral patterned fabric under her chin.

“I think he was born like that,” Liam mused, stepping back to admire his handiwork, “I think that fucking moth on his tummy was there when Anne got the scan.”

Liam was definitely her new best friend. She smiled at him, lifting up the cropped black blazer she had left in one of the toilet cubicles on the door hook.

“Just remember, try be Bath,” He smirked, taking off his own black blazer and running his hand through his dishevelled brunette quiff.

Liam managed to end up looking like a damn Burberry model in his uniform whilst Mila felt sure she looked to be a cross between a hooker and a business woman. So maybe a well paid hooker? Her dark hair was tied off from her face is a rugged braid that Zayn had helped her with before he had left for a date with Harry but the strands of her that were still growing out from the bangs she had cut when she was nineteen remained tedious in the effort of keeping hair from her vision.

 

Taking a deep breath, Mila stepped out into the main section of the restaurant, walking in a way that made it look like she wasn’t completely shitting herself. This was a big gig and she couldn’t fuck it up. Waitressing may not have been her dream job but she had ten more months in Bath and she wasn’t going to live in poverty during her final ten months there. Her shiny black heels tracked her movements as she strode outside to the patio towards a table of four soaking in the late September sunshine. Mila could practically smell the money off them as she shut the door behind her, exiting out to the scenic location.

“Hello, I’m Miss Hussein and I will be your waitress for the day,” She beamed at the elderly gentleman, he had white hair slicked back on his head like Draco Malfoy and glasses resting on the tip of his wrinkled nose as he paid Mila no attention.

“Mila!” A bubbly voice chirped.   
Oh god. Mila felt like she was in a fucking episode of Downtown Abbey with Pixie Elise Locke sat at a pretty metal table with a floral pattern shaped into the top of it, the type found at any artisanal patisserie, wearing a knee length pleated skirt coloured with many different shades of hydrangeas and attached to a dark blue top that stretched over her chest. Mila hadn’t recognised her at first glance, in spite of her regal way of leaning back against the chair she sat in like a teenage Princess with a level of sarcasm that equalled her power, as her hair had been styled into big looping glamorous curls that echoed that of a movie star. Her lips were oddly bright pink to match the florals of her skirt and her cheeks tinted more than usual. She looked like a Barbie doll, fake and dressed up and definitely not Pixie Elise Locke. And next to her was her Ken. Seth wore ugly navy dress pants, with a matching blazer over a lighter blue shirt and his arm draped carelessly over Pixie as he scrolled through his phone, paying less attention to his girlfriend than his father had to Mila. He had to be Seth’s father; he had the same disinterested expression and piercing blue eyes, noticeable even under the thick frames of his glasses.

 “Lizzie?” A woman with her greying hair tied up in a neat bun directed her questioning tone towards Pixie.

“Apologies, Violetta,” Pixie smiled charmingly, her tone far more formal than anything Mila had heard before, “This is Mila. She is a friend of Harry’s uh.... one of Harry’s friend.”

“You know the waitress, Elizabeth?” Seth’s father asked, looking up from his own phone to give Pixie an odd look.

Pixie nodded, “She’s a fashion student,” Pixie tried to amend her mistake, “At Bath Spa.”  
“I still don’t understand why you go to that pitiful university, Liza,” Mr Porter continued tutting a little, “Honestly if you had half a mind you would have gone to Imperial or Kings if you weren’t good enough for Oxbridge.”

Pixie looked down at thighs, fiddling with her hands and Mila noticed one of Harry’s rings loose on her fingers, a dull silver band with a turquoise gem around the outer rim. It was one of the rings Harry wore on a daily basis and Pixie never wore rings. She tried not to scrutinize the accessory when she was still wondering why these people were referring to Pixie as everything but Pixie when her name change had been very public knowledge. Mila had googled her a few days ago just to make sure that she didn’t have some crazy history. All she had found was an extremely detailed Wikipedia article that she didn’t bother scrolling through because that would obviously be fucking creepy.  And Mila wasn’t that fucking creepy.

“What was that about Harry?” Seth interrupted his father, three strands of conversation too late, screwing up his face at Pixie before saying, “We spoke  about this, Pixie,” his tone devoid of any expression that people would have when talking about Harry, let alone Pixie.

“Please, Seth, can we refer to the girl by her true name and not this odious immaturity she’s acquainted herself with,” Violetta sighed, shuddering at the very idea that someone could refer to Pixie by a name she preferred.

“I know, sweetheart,” Pixie said in a hushed tone, looking down so not to cause a scene, “Harry’s just a friend but he’s an uh close friend, I can’t just -,”  
“You have Orla, don’t you?” Seth snapped, “You have me? Why do need _Harry_?!”

Pixie glanced around, panicked. Mila had never seen her look frightened, she had gotten up on a stage a few weeks into university and performed to a bunch of people she had never known and was able to talk her way out of being late to lectures or forgetting course content. Yet there she was, a glint of fear gilding her flickering eyes.

“Quite right,” Mr Porter grumbled, “Harry is that fairy boy, isn’t he? With the long hair like a girl?”  
Mila felt a shiver trail down her spine as she ducked her head, paying attention to the shine of her pumps. Whilst Pixie bowed her head and started nodding, fiddling even more with Harry’s ring.

“Um...” Mila coughed, lifting her head, “What is it that is wished to be ordered?”

“Uh the afternoon tea selection,” Mr Porter said, holding up the menu and tapping his nail to the title to show Mila.

“Anything else?” Mila asked, leaning backwards with hope she could finally leave the disgustingly awkward situation.

“And for Lizzie?” Violetta asked, looking pointedly at her son.

Mila felt every ounce of blood in her body stop, her muscles tightening as she refused to turn her body to even steal a glance at Pixie’s expression because just hearing the insinuation that her boyfriend needed to choose what the ate as well as excluding her from the rest of what the family were eating made Mila’s stomach drop.

“And for Lizzie, the confit loch Duart salmon,” Seth responded, not looking up from the menu that lit up his face from where it glowed out of his phone.

“Any wines?” Mila continued through grit teeth.

It may have been barely past one in the afternoon but the establishment’s manager had told her that the sort of people who dined at the Priory were the type who needed to be somewhat inebriated to deal with the people they were dining with. Mila certainly felt like she needed to gulp down an entire bottle of the Prosecco she had seen in the wine cellar after having to put up with the Porter’s.

“The Krug Grande,” Mr Porter said, “That’s all, thanks.”  
Mila nodded, giving them the approximate time the wait would be before striding away with a non committal hum on her lips.

 

The second she had gotten away from the Porter’s she felt the tension gripping her skin release automatically - like a stretch of elastic that had been tightening over and over. She sighed; moving her fingers up to the messy French braid that kept her hair together as she murmured out the Porter’s order to the kitchen staff. She caught her reflection in the steel of the kitchen utensils, her hair limply hanging over her shoulders, the hastily scribbled on eyeliner and the bags under her eyes that were critical thanks to the late shifts she had been pulling at The Circus. She snagged a hair tie from her wrist, wrapping it twice around the bulk of her thick dark brown hair and pushing her way out of the kitchen and towards the main area of the restaurant.  Mila could already predict how her evening would go as she sashayed through the restaurant, taking a detour back to the wine cellar to grab the Krug Grande Mr Porter had asked for. She would crawl back into her dorm at around 9pm, hair scraped away from her hair and eviscerating the usual femininity she waltzed around with even when her legs felt numb after being on her feet for 15 hours in godforsaken heels. Zayn would have to harbour her in his bed, even if it meant she would be sandwiched between him and Harry as they gushed over Jimmy and Thomas. Harry had apparently gotten Zayn into Downton Abbey during their trip in the summer to Westeros – unfortunately not the fantasy realm Ned Stark operated in but the Scottish Highlands – where all they had was what Harry downloaded on his ipad for entertainment. Mila needed cuddles because the weight of knowing Pixie had to deal with the Porters every day was unbearable; maybe being tangled in a mess of Zayn and Harry until they all fell asleep was the way to go.


	5. Chapter 4

You could smell the coffee from halfway down the street, but the second Mila pushed into the coffee shop, the check of her plaid brushing the glass doors adorned with cartoonish stickers of the beverages Colonna & Small’s had to offer she was instantly overwhelmed. Eleanor and Max, a would-be couple in her fashion class, had been telling Mila all about the infamous caffeinated “mouth orgasms” (as El had so eloquently described them) the easily missable cafe had. It was a bit too indie for Mila’s usual funds – for some reason when a business was as underground as zone one of the London tube map it meant the cost of its produce was as high as the Shard, or Zayn on a Saturday – but so were Max and Eleanor and aside from Zayn they had been her only other close friends.

                                                                             
“A chai latte, green tea fusion and...” Eleanor relayed her and Max’s order then turned to Mila expectantly.

“Oh and a cafe mocha,” Mila shrugged, non committal.

It had been the first thing she had seen etched in gold pen onto soothingly warm brown chalk boards, the sort of brown that reminded Mila of her part time job in Starbucks during her two year apprenticeship. All warm and gooey, like staring right into the cup of caramel macchiato she would have been filling up with a deadpanned expression after the customer requested menial pretentious nonsense such as “two seconds of soy”. But the sensory overload she got just from casting her pistachio green eyes over the menu wasn’t the only memory that she drew out since something about the handwriting gave her this odd sense of familiarity. Perhaps it was because her superior at Starbucks had always asked her to do the board decorations: being a fashion and design apprentice and all. It did not matter what she had ordered anyways, Mila considered as she followed behind Max towards a slight cubbyhole in the beige toned cafe which was set over with a light dusting of a surprisingly early sunset for the time of year, since anything that had some percentage of caffeine in it would be beneficial to helping her through the all nighter she would be pulling with Max and El; they had to finish their moodboards and blog entries for them to be able to get on to the next part of the final assessment. The two of them lived together in the town centre so were able to have a far easier route to the Circus than Mila. Their studio apartment above the Tesco local, above the other flats, was currently housing Mila’s laptop, chargers and a fridge full of whatever drinks that the Buzzfeed article Eleanor’s friend Danielle guaranteed would keep them awake.

  
“When did Ori want us to start doing the making for our designs?” Max asked, his stylistically messy dark hair peaking out of the large rimmed black hat atop his head.

Mila frowned, tugging off her monochrome satchel onto the wood of the back of the chair as she took a seat in front of Eleanor, beside Max, “November we start and mid-Jan finish in time for LFW.”  
The upcoming prospect of having her designs paraded down a catwalk in the Graduate Fashion Show during London Fashion Week was what had been keeping her going through all the times she had found herself going to bed at 7am after staying up all night to create the perfect first draft for her dissertation every day of the past few weeks as September drew to a close. After having been in England for five years, working backstage at Somerset House during the events as well as gaining career history in every fashion magazine headquarters she could manage then finally getting into her fourth choice for Uni, the fact that she could have models, the kind who she had spent hours scrolling through their instagrams double tapping their pictures at 3am, wearing her clothes was just all too tantalising an idea.

“Found models yet?” Eleanor smiled, fingers sifting through her thick layered brown waves as she brought Mila back to reality.

“I’ve infiltrated the bitch’s friendship group,” Mila chuckled triumphantly, by now everyone in her Fashion class had heard her whining about ‘the lanky bellend’ from Drama at least a gazillion times over the month.

“They’re friends with the guy who does English?” Max asked with an inquisitive arch to his neat left brow.

“Max, yes! The hot curly haired bloke!” Eleanor remembered fondly.

“Harry,” Mila confirmed, taking her ipad out from her bag, “He’s dating my boy.”  
“Lucky fucker,” Eleanor sighed, pressing back hard into the upholstered armchair.

“His look is like,” Max furrowed his brow, his bottom lip slipping forward, “goals.”  
Mila resisted rolling her eyes as she watched Eleanor nod in agreement. Did the two of them look in the mirror ever? Or maybe even just check their instagram following? They always wore outfits that co-ordinated in some way; take that day in particular, for example: they both wore trench coats, Eleanor’s black one draped over the arm of the chair whilst Max’s beige one was still half on his body as though he wasn’t sure what to with himself. Matching jackets aside, everything about them just seemed to fit from the similar quirks in their lips when Mila said some scathing comment right down to their Chelsea boots that Mila swore on her Nani’s grave were identical. But of course they would be; the two of them had been running a fashion blog ‘The Trend Pear’ for the better half of the year acquiring them many followers from posting their matching wardrobe and receiving multiple tweets with the content being ‘MUM AND DAD’ – always in all caps and followed by teary faced emojis.

“He should model for you!” Eleanor squealed causing Mila to look up from her ipad where she had been checking her own disappointingly not as successful fashion blog, “He’s tall, broad, has this like brooding expression when no one else is looking and that jaw was like designed by Renzo fucking Piano!”

“Checking out second years are we El?” Mila teased, nudging her foot gently with her the black of her pumps.

“Piss off, Zee told us about you drooling over a first year,” Eleanor smirked, holding the ‘oo’ in drooling for far too long than it was necessary.

Mila gaped, “Since when did you and Zayn talk?”  
“He started working with me at the Odeon,” Eleanor shrugged then leant forward to swipe Mila’s ipad to give her website a once over.

If anything this just reaffirmed Zayn’s status as a prick. First of all, he had gone to the cinema with Harry to watch Legend the Saturday just gone! Mila was certain of this since he had come home grumbling about Harry had been gushing over how ‘piff’ Tom Hardy was and how his tattoos and facial hair were just ‘erection causing’ – that had led to Mila patting Zayn on the head, feeding him the Cadbury’s bar of chocolate with the fizzing candy and jelly sweets she had been saving then kissing a promise of watching the next episode of Downtown Abbey without Harry into his scruffy facial hair (that she told him, if she had a penis, would be definitely erection causing, maybe even more so than Tom Hardy’s) (Mila genuinely had no idea what Tom Hardy looked like) (And it had been very difficult not to make boner jokes when he had a surname like ‘Hardy’). But that entire escapade meant he had been able to go to the cinema for free since last Mia checked Zayn was all for watching the latest blockbusters of Putlocker and ignoring Mila’s horrified yells whenever she walked into his room to find him watching one of the Fast & Furious films that had pop up ads of porn stars sucking dick around the sides every few seconds. And second of all, who did Zayn think he was telling some of the few people who could tolerate Mila – and vice versa – that she may or may not have been crushing on a first year?

 

“Chai latte, green tea fusion a-a-and a cafe mocha with a little something special,” The waitress said.

Mila looked up from her notebook where she had been noting down the advice Max and Eleanor had to offer for her website, “I didn’t ask for....” Her voice caught in her throat as she felt incredibly underdressed.

Even though her waitress wore a simple black, figure hugging dress that was covered partially covered with a gold apron; she felt, in her black skinnies and flannel shirt over a plain white t-shirt, like absolute trash that needed to be taken straight to the nearest garbage dump. But when Pixie Elise Locke was the one wearing the simple black dress it kind of made Mila believe that the creation of the LBD was exclusively, and intentionally, for Pixie, and Pixie only. Mila flushed hot as she gawked down at the mug in front of her where a heart made of cocoa powder was settled atop the cream covering the drink. The warmth was in her system now, it started small but like when you dropped ink into water she could feel the warmth spread at a rate that should have been impossible. By the time she was able to open her mouth to greet Pixie, the feeling of joy would be visible under a microscope in every single one of her cells.

“Pixie, hey,” She managed to choose a selection of words and formulate what could be considered a sentence of some standard.

Pixie smiled down at her then became distracted as she looked past Mila.

“Ellie!” Pixie squeaked upon setting her eyes on Eleanor, “Maxxie!” She added, seeing Max and tipping his hat with her hand.

The two of them joined Pixie in the high frequency squeaking, arms clambering forward to get a grip of each other.

“You know Pixie?” Eleanor laughed between pressing kisses to Pixie’s cheeks.

“Yeah, through Zayn, through Harry,” Mila explained, wondering if Pixie would press kisses to her cheeks like she was now doing for Max.

“Her boyfriend, well er I guess ex boyfriend, is my childhood best friend,” Eleanor told her, reaching up to gently rub Pixie’s shoulder.

“Louis William Tomlinson,” Pixie filled in for Mila’s confused expression, elongating each of the eight syllables just rolling off her tongue like he was a lover she remembered fondly enough to perhaps write soppy sonnets about, “How’s he doing?”

“Back up in Yorkshire, he finished his teaching degree a year ago, he’s teaching drama at some secondary school,” Max said leaning forward to wrap his slightly chapped from the cold lips around the off-white ceramic.

Pixie sighed, her expression fuzzy with this gross blissed out joy, “Good for him! My little drama queen!”   
If ‘fond’ was a verb, Pixie was definitely fonding at that very moment. Mila began to drink her mocha with an intense sense of urgency, ending up with a scalded tongue. But third degree burns were bearable so long as she didn’t have to contribute to the conservation. She winced as the hot liquid washed back against the already dead make up of the sensory nerves on her tongue.

“So you work here?” Max asked dumbly, his feathery hair dishevelled from where he had taken off his hat following Pixie’s torment.

“Yeah, I do the baking,” Pixie nodded, “Orla... you remember Orla right?”  
Eleanor and Max nodded, “Tall, brunette, can recite the entire Avengers film?” Eleanor smiled.

Pixie laughed, bowing her head as she nodded in agreement, her hair tied up in a reasonably neat bun in comparison to past attempts Mila had witnessed, “Yeah well they’re on the floor doing orders and recognised Mila, I had just put on these almond croissants so told me to give her the drink,” Pixie explained.

Her tongue feeling numb and heavy in her mouth, “You bake?” Mila asked.

Pixie glanced down at Mila, quirking a smile as her she stared. Her long eyelashes were delicate, framing her green eyes and curling upwards with the light coat of ‘Too Faced’ mascara that Mila knew Pixie always carried on her person. She had multiples of the very same kind, one in each purse, her locker and she had even left two at Zayn and Mila’s place. It was one of the many endearing qualities Pixie had to offer.

“Yeah,” Pixie smiled, “H and I have taken a load of courses in Paris, we go to different ones every year. But he’s better than I am, ‘cause Haz worked in a bakery up where his dad lives on weekends.”  
Eleanor scoffed, “Please! You and Lou were menaces!” She jabbed her thumb in Pixie’s direction, twisting her body a little, “I let this one into my parent’s place ‘cause Pixie says she’ll make me some salted caramel cookies and what do I come back to? My parent’s kitchen covered in flour, every single fucking surface was dripping, and the two _children_ tossing handfuls of cookie dough at each other!”  
Pixie smiled at the memory, pulling her bottom lip into her mouth with her teeth. Mila could just imagine Pixie with flour dousing her curls and freckling her cheeks and just how fucking adorable she would look. Mila inhaled sharply at the concept. Pixie was just _unfai_ r.

She pouted, “I was 15!” She protested and Mila was nose deep in her mocha but she could hear the smile catch on Pixie’s enunciation.

“You were a menace!” Max retorted with a smirk, “And with Louis, fuck you two were mental!”  
“I was simply an innocent year 11 with a boyfriend who was trying to hold onto the flimsy dregs of his youth,” Pixie’s lips moved, full and droopy, where the corners of her lips dropped in their natural state they perked upwards as her drawl left her mouth.

She was awfully sinful - her lips being the biggest sin of them all. Mila was certain of this as when Pixie spoke she often found it difficult to keep up, her brain lagging behind as she watching Pixie’s lips form shapes around words. This was also awful because Pixie had such a lovely voice and Mila hated to miss it because she was imagining kissing lips as soft looking at Pixie’s.

“He still is,” Max grinned, hitting his clean and presentable nails on Eleanor’s shoulder.

“Oh his new girlfriend is to die for Pixie!” Eleanor sighed, “Danielle, not like my Dani, but Danielle.”   
“She’s hot,” Max mused.

Pixie blanched, putting a hand on her hip as she jutted the other side of her hip outwards, “Hotter than me?” She asked in this tone that was odd for her, kind of like any typical ‘bitch’ character from some noughties American teen film.

Eleanor stood up; at full height she was now taller than Pixie, not as much as say Mila or Orla were but taller nonetheless. She looked down at Pixie; the white crepe shirt that was matching to Max’s billowy around her lithe figure. Pixie inhaled sharply, a smile far too akin to a smirk present on her pretty lips, her eyes flitting from fluttering shut to staring up at Eleanor. Fuck, why did she have to look at everyone like she was in love with them? Mila wondered if she did that for her. Eleanor leant down, lips close to Pixie’s ear where her curls were scraped back from her cheeks with a tortoiseshell hair clip, “I’m gonna go to the loo,” She whispered.

“Filthy,” Pixie full on smirked, looking at Eleanor through her eyelashes.

Eleanor gave her a shit-eating grin before smacking Pixie’s bum, in this friendly way like it was something she used to do a lot back when she lived in London; she stalked away as she slightly loudly said, especially within a fucking cafe, “No, not hotter than you!”

Pixie blushed, but a triumphant look was strongly held under the red tinting her cheeks.

 

“Oi sexy!” Orla shouted, they were stood in front of the counters that separated the making of the beverages from the general public, dressed in a similar black dress to Pixie – Mila could never imagine Orla wearing, ever – and chewing gum in this obnoxious asshole way like they had been the first time Mila had met them, “Stop flirting with the customers and your croissants are done!”

Pixie swung her shoulders, the left one catching under her chin where she kept it; she looked adorable. It was an endearing look to give in which consisted of closing her eyes then snapping them back open and looking straight at Orla. Orla rolled their eyes, tossing their head thus letting their French braid lift up and smack against their back.

“Give me a second, babe!” She smiled sweetly before turning back to Mila and Max.

“Your croissants will burn, babe!” Orla said in a similar sugary sweet tone.

“Not if you take them out the oven, babe!” Pixie countered.

Grumbling under their breath, Orla walked off to a door which Mila presumed lead to a kitchen. Pixie turned back to Max and Mila.

“You back at Zee’s or ours again?” Pixie asked, looking pointedly at Mila.

“Oh Max and El’s,” She replied, “Got some work to finish, coffee to drink.”

She made an attempt at sounding cool, slightly dismissive and definitely not like she had only caught the last half of what she was saying because Mila had been fantasising about Pixie’s mouth wrapped around her fingers and sucking off cookie dough off them. Pixie should have been illegal. No one made Mila lose her general chill attitude that had been developed like a fine wine after spending so much time with a recluse like Zayn. Yet there this fucking eighteen year old blonde girl, with a voice that was like a fucking star and so many perfect details that Mila couldn’t focus on one to give the right amount of exposure to, just walking around the streets of Bath and making Mila weak.

Pixie pouted. Did Mila mention that she felt her heart expand ten times whenever Pixie did that?  
“Can Orla and I come over?” She looked between Mila and Max, “We promise we won’t be too distractive!”   
Mila wasn’t so sure of that but Max was already agreeing, nodding thoroughly and causing a large smile to crack Pixie’s face in two. She started to say goodbye, her words slurring quicker as Orla shouted at her, their head poking out the kitchen door and purple eyes flaring up. Pixie twirled around, taking their empty mugs on the black circular tray she had brought them over on, and jogged carefully back to the kitchen with her bum bouncing in a way that made Mila want to crawl back into her mother’s womb so that she would never have to witness such pureness.

 

Pixie was sin.

 

Just as Mila was shoving her ipad back into her bag, listening to Max and Eleanor arguing over which of the Chinese takeout they should order from, she heard the slapping of thick soled boots against tiled floors interrupting Max’s boasting about the Jade Palace.

“Hey, Max, El,” Orla’s voice floated down, in its usual gritty and harsh contralto, “Mila.”

Mila looked across to Orla, they were no longer wearing the gold apron but instead a red plaid shirt under a huge black zip hoodie that practically swamped them and a black choker straight out of the 90s around their neck. Orla was looking unusually grunge in comparison to usual, with their thick lazy and haphazard straightened hair tied up in a high ponytail. Their usual look was just all black, the splash of red, even covered by the hoodie, was obscene on them.

“You free in uh two Saturdays time?” Orla asked, positioning all their weight onto one leg as they leant forward, “We’re having a housewarming party.”  
Mila nodded, “Whole squad going?” She internally winced at referring to their group as a ‘squad’.

Max and Eleanor exchanged a look, “Does Pixie have a new uh, a new boyfriend?”

“Yeah, to both,” Orla squinted a little as they rubbed their thumb under their left eye.

“Um... we’ll see,” Eleanor bit her lip, her doe eyes that looked like she had bounded right out of Bambi.

Orla nodded, understanding, “Well the theme is Downton Abbey so -.”  
Mila was about to rip Orla’s choker off their neck and wrap it around her own so to proceed to choke the life out of herself. Pixie wasn’t just everything in terms of looks, personality, humours and talent but she also liked Mila’s favourite TV series. Mila was pretty sure, from that knowledge alone; she just had the biggest orgasm ever.

“Dude that’s so awesome!” Mila gasped.

If her heart expanded any more, she would be diagnosed with a cardiomegaly.

“See you there then,” Orla nodded, gnawing at their lip, stepping back as though to leave but stopping to hover in front of the three of them, “Mila, give us your number? Pixie was mentioning that we don’t have it.”  
“I’m in the group chat?” Mila raised her eyebrows.

“Oh... well give us it anyways, babe,” Orla slid their phone out of their hoodie pocket, typing in their password before handing over the iPhone 6 to Mila.

“Babe?” Mila smirked at the unusually affectionate term Orla used as she tapped in her number as well as the contact name ‘Babe’ followed by a purple devil emoji.

“What can I say, Pixie’s rubbing off on me,” Orla groaned as they read Mila’s contact name, shaking their head, “She’s pretty fucking in love with you, thinks you’re special. I think she’s nuts but hey.”

“Love you too,” Mila grinned as Orla finally started to walk off, “Babe!” She added, causing Orla to flip her off without even bothering to turn around.

Mila smirked, not caring too much because she had just gotten verbal confirmation from Pixie’s very own certified best friend that Pixie Elise Locke was pretty fucking in love with her.

 

Cool.


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mmm when it starts to get unedited and shite. 
> 
> H. x

Over the years Mila Hussein had found that being a fashion student often came in handy. In times when she needed a new outfit, sharp-ish, she could rip up something old and make it into something new with a few threads from her sewing machine. Mila thrived off upcycling; she could be an advocate for the cause! Bath had a great little haberdashery stall in the Guildhall Market that was less than 10 minutes away from the Circus. Even better it was only a few minutes from Harry and Niall’s place down by the river Avon. She had spent the weeks putting together the fabric needed to recreate Lady Mary’s infamous red dress, the one that had a turn-of-the-century look to the Spanish evening dress. She already had a red dress, made of a lovely satin that Mila adored and hated that she had to destroy its beauty with the gold embroidered lace but in the end it turned out even more beautiful. Then she begged, literally got on her hands and knees, Deepika to order some silk chiffon from the suppliers for Sew ‘N’ Sew. Now the sleeveless deep red dress had cap sleeves that went over the chest and down to just beneath them where it was secured with a blood red band of the same fabric. Sure, she had to just buy some simple red gloves from Primark to complete the Edwardian look but when she was living day in, day out with Niall James Horan she didn’t mind not having a perfect look. Especially because it looked like he was just going to wear a crown and draw a moustache on his face with her eyeliner. Zayn had turfed Mila out for almost a fortnight just to spend more time with Harry so in retaliation she was threatening to shag Niall since she had been shacking up with him. Mila couldn’t remember the last time she was at her tiny little dorm she shared with Zayn. She couldn’t remember the last time she had to shout at someone for not putting the empty milk cartons in the bin, or eating her half price Sainsbury’s cookies, or for getting spray paint all over the fabric that was for a dress NOT a sheet for Zayn to cover his floor with when he was decorating his room. She wouldn’t admit it to Zayn, when he had turned up to pick Mila up on the Saturday of the party, but she did reach forward to tousle his freshly dyed blonde locks. 

“Cute,” She grinned, “Much better than the blonde streak Trish showed me from your sixth form pictures.”  
Zayn made a face at her. He hated how close she was with family at times like this. Times when he knew she had entire folders saved on her laptop of his, as the kids are saying, “foetus” pictures.  
“Well H said we’re going as Jimmy and Thomas,” Zayn shrugged, trying to change the topic, the pretty little angled stubble across his face defined as he hollowed his cheeks out to pout.  
“I can see,” Mila beamed looking at him with admiration.  
Zayn was just such a fucking stunner, was the thing. Last week, Pixie had gotten drunk on account of being out with Niall and Liam. Niall without Harry and Liam without Sophia meant that if they were going to be out drinking then they had no supervisors and would get fucking hammered. Niall took Pixie back to his and dumped next to Mila on the couch where she had been writing up an essay on the history of feminism within fashion. Pixie had then plastered herself to Mila’s shoulder, since Niall was somewhere between the living room and the kitchen passed out, and began whispering slurred sentences into her ear and wouldn’t relent even when Mila attempted to push her off.  
“You and Zayn,” She had mumbled, “Are like models, you know?”  
Mila hadn’t replied, just realised that in the last paragraph she had used some incorrect grammar.  
“Like both so pretty, but hot,” Pixie had continued, “And you complement each other so well? Like he’s a little shorter than you and you’re tall, really fucking tall! And you’re like Gods, I love it! So pretty...”  
Mila had begun to smile, finally not feeling the urge to push Pixie off her. No matter how adorable the kid was, even Mila had her limits.  
“I’m pretty?” Mila had asked, curiosity and the necessity to build up her far more pressing than an essay.  
Pixie had nodded, her curls tickling Mila’s chin, “You have like eyes and they’re nice! And your hair is soooooooo soft!” Pixie had began to bury her face into Mila’s hair, “And shiny! You’re so shiny! Like a star...”  
After that, Mila was unable to get any more compliments out of her since she had passed out. 

Hopefully she would get some later that day. 

Mila had to admit, when she had caught her reflection in the microwave, she did look good. She always knew red was her colour, hence why she had bought the under dress in the first place, but with red lipstick and that dress and her hair done up in a far fancier way than she was usually bothered to do – even for her brother’s own wedding. Mila wasn’t the type to be modest, she knew she was attractive and she knew that she did have a figure that wasn’t too different to a VS models but she wasn’t vain about it – usually. She posted more selfies on instagram than was probably healthy. In her defence, the Circus had great lighting and she always dressed well. But here she was, looking like a fucking Greek Goddess with her jawline cutting the air, her contour looking like she got it professionally done when she had actually just been staring into the front camera of her iphone and bopping to Sean Paul. Surely Pixie, Calum or Orla had to have some girl loving girl friends who would be at the party to take Mila’s mind of the impossibility of getting anywhere past friendship with Pixie Elise Locke because Mila knew that the look she wore for the party was the sort of look that could get a girl laid. 

“Come on, Hussein!” Zayn shouted his tone impatient and from the kitchen Mila could hear him flicking his lighter with anticipation.  
She began to skip down the hall with ease in spite of her 4 inch heels that made her teeter well above Zayn, dislodging strands of hair that had been pitifully restrained by sliding clips. Once she got to Zayn, she took his hand and let herself be led down to his car, the blistering cold of mid October seeping into her skin and making her rethink her outfit choice. Why couldn’t the theme be Game of Thrones? Mila would have been able to survive this fucking arctic weather if she was dressed like Ygritte.  
“Why we leaving so early?” Mila asked, glancing to the digital clock which read 20:00 in red LED lights.  
“Cal asked me to get booze,” Zayn murmured as he started up the car.  
“Oh alright,” Mila nodded, reclining back in her seat as she pressed in the seatbelt buckle.  
She watched the continuous shades of beige that seemed to be Bath’s natural colour palette digress past her as her attention lessened on her surroundings, the surroundings she could probably do a very amazing drawing of after having walked past the unevenly bricked wall on the left of Victorian Bridge Road then watched the beiges turn to greens, a great thick wall of mismatched trees that would face her as she made her way into town. The houses in London always looked so different, even the more modern ones had a different build when they were on the same street but in Bath they were quite similar, sort of like quaint townhouses made of pretty sandstone. Mila thrived off of it. This was why she had decided to move five years ago. She wanted a change and she had gotten it. Interning in London meant she got a different story every day, new places and new people. Going to university in Bath meant similarity and structure that her teenage self never would or could admit was necessary. Norfolk, where she had grown up as a child had never been much of a home. London was more of a stop off where she was to find herself. But Bath, Bath felt like home.

“You sure this is enough?” Mila asked teasingly, looking down from the two bags of drink she held to the three Zayn held and back up to Zayn.  
“Mila... this is a party that Niall’s attending,” He reminded her with a wiry smile, “Of course this isn’t nearly enough.”  
He was right. She had not be bothered to struggle to get her key to the Queen Square townhouse and instead had kicked the door three times with her patent gold pointy toe heels. Now the two of them waited patiently outside Pixie’s house, alcohol in hands and dressed like they had stepped straight out of an Agatha Christie novel. The door swung open and revealed a tall, built but slim about it boy.  
“Zayn...Mila,” Calum nodded, he was wearing a shirt with a turned up collar and navy briefs that were tight on his toned thighs. He took a step to the side, “Come in then.”  
He usually only showed emotion when one of his girls were around him. Sometimes even Niall or Liam could coax a slight, close lipped smile out of him. Mila and Zayn may have been recluses but Calum took keeping to himself to the next level. The only time Mila could recall making him smile was when she had shown him a picture of her younger brother Anwar with her family’s new puppy. The two of them followed Calum inside and Mila was hit with how much she missed being in Pixie’s house. It had this already established familiarity and even better: it smelt of Pixie. The place had tidied up since the last time Mila had been there, which meant that things were just aligned a little straighter and the febreeze air freshener had been changed. The house was never messy, always formal with that classy chic style and a colour scheme that reflected the maturity Pixie wanted to emulate. All dark coloured halls that said nothing of any of the house’s resident’s personalities. 

“Evening, Huszayn,” Orla called out from the couch, chuckling at the use of the nickname they had come up with for Mila and Zayn one night when they got pissed.  
“Evening, babe,” Mila replied, in a cheery tone.  
She had been persistently calling Orla ‘babe’ since the cafe incident and would most likely never stop. They had their hair slicked back and kept together with a black bow, their collar of a white shirt that was identical to Calum’s was turned up to their jaw just like his but with a duck egg blue stretch of fabric tied around the neck. They wore a fitted grey waistcoat under a black blazer an over a pair of dark grey skinny jeans.  
“Branson or Crawley?” Mila asked, sitting opposite them.  
A smile spread over Orla’s face, “Branson,” They confirmed, kicking their army boots onto the coffee table, “And you’re... Lady Mary?”  
Mila nodded, “Couldn’t imagine you watching Downton...” then tacked on just for fun, “babe.”  
“I’m an actress, babe, I have to watch the hottest shows,” Orla grinned, watching as Calum struggled to carry the five plastic bags that Zayn and Mila had brought into the kitchen.  
“I’m s’posed to be Matthew,” Calum called out from the hall.  
“Is Zaynie here?” Harry’s voice lifted the corners of Zayn’s lips; they twitched a little as the three in the living room were able to hear Harry’s squealing from the other room to whatever Calum’s response had been.  
Harry came bounding down the corridor; his hair flying behind him and his mouth lopsidedly hanging open as he half smiled into the velocity. He stopped, nearly buckling his knees and falling flat on his face due to the abruptness. He lifted his head, curls fanning either side of his cheeks as he exhaled shallow, languid breaths and looking like some form of renaissance art.  
“Wow...” He gawked, his eyes bugging out and giving Zayn a once over.  
To be fair, even Mila could see where the boy was coming from. Her boy was looking mighty fine, if she did say so herself. He wore these dropped crotch trousers that Mila had taken it in at the waist so they now had two front pleats and gave him the air of some sort of Aladdin prince in formal wear. Tucked into the trousers was a white shirt that had a few buttons popped open in Harry’s usual signature style; this shirt was strapped down to his toned chest with his stretches of black suspenders. It wasn’t strictly 1920s or even Jimmy but no matter. Zayn looked good and no one would argue with that. 

Harry, on the other hand, stood by the door frame, bracing himself and wearing a dark blue tee that was adorned in specks of flour which loosely hung over a pair of light blue denim shorts that Mila was certain she had seen Beyonce wearing circa 2008.  
“You look,” Harry gulped and started nodding enthusiastically, “good.”  
“Thanks, Mary Berry,” Zayn grinned, stepping forward to sweep Harry into his arms, their arms looping around each other and Zayn pressed his lips to Harry in a sweet kiss.  
From the sofa, Mila and Orla responded to the PDA by imitating vomit noises but that only made Harry stoop lower and deepen the kiss, snaking his fingers into the neat shave of an undercut before Zayn’s quiff started.  
“Styles!” Pixie’s voice pulled the two apart, “Get your flat ass back in here before I cut Zayn’s dick, fingers AND mouth off!!”  
Calum grunted as he re-entered the room, “She gets pissy,” he told them running fingers through the front tufts of his hair as flour drifted out of it, “When she bakes.” His sentence as disjointed as his movement to sit next to Orla.  
“How will you cut his mouth off?” Orla yelled in retaliation, smirking as they crossed their arms over chest.  
Zayn grimaced, “I don’t want to find out,” His eyes sliding from Harry to Orla, accusingly. 

“Trust me, you don’t.”  
Standing in the door frame was Pixie Elise Locke, green eyes glinting against a large meat knife that her small hand was wrapped around. But there she was, wearing a fucking sexy maid outfit; the skirt was wired up in a dome shape and therefore lifted up over her thighs, showing them off so much that Mila was certain she caught a glimpse of Pixie’s frilly panties.  
“Wow!” Orla chuckled, applauding in a taunting fashion, “Anna Bates has arrived!”  
“I lost a bet,” Pixie explained to a stunned looking Mila and Zayn.  
“You did indeed-y!” Harry removed himself from Zayn, draping an arm over Pixie’s shoulder blades and looking down at her with a shit-eating grin even as he chewed on whatever gum he seemed to have a lifetime supply of.  
Mila raised her eyebrows, “What was the bet?”  
“That I could out drink Horton,” Pixie glared up at Harry, “Nialler’s got this mate and he was telling us, y’know that Sunday we all got black out before half of us had exams the next day, but yeah he was telling us about how his mate, Bress, read this fic where Anna was an uh....” Pixie coughed, shuffling awkwardly but the weak fabric of the dress caused every square centimetre of her chest to jiggle to an extreme, “an uh... sex maid?” She looked away from her friend, then back up to single out Harry with her narrowed eyes, “So this wanker said... for the party, for a laugh.... one of us should... if we didn’t win....”  
“I won,” Harry beamed, “and my ass isn’t flat!” He exclaimed with a scowl.  
“Sure it isn’t,” Pixie scoffed, twirling around and strutting back down the hall, like a cutely short runway model, and now Mila was certain she could definitely see the obvious curve of Pixie’s bum that was very emulative of a peach, “Now back to the kitchen or Zee will be castrated!”  
At her resolving comment Harry scampered down the hall after Pixie; his curly hair bouncing against his back muscles that worked in fervour even at the light dash he was making down the corridor. 

Mila turned to Orla, “Who else is coming?”She asked once Zayn had sat down on the sofa opposite and swiped out his phone, preoccupied by what appeared to be snapchat since he seemed to making rather strange faces as he looked into his phone, the altering of his facial expressions changing at lightning speed.  
“Ni, Soph, Li, Grimmers, Sage, Owen, Lan, Mikey, Luke, Ash and Bryana,” They recalled the list, holding up their hands and tugging down a finger as they called off a name, “and maybe Seth?”  
“No Quin or Rache?” Mila asked before she could stop herself.  
Orla gave her a look which basically said ‘are you really going there with ME?’ but not in a disarming way as Mila would have expected as they played with a cream button on their waistcoat, “Um well he tried to make a move on me,” They stopped glancing across to take in Mila’s expression, eyes calculating as they tried to pick up any change in Mila’s expression. She wasn’t too surprised. Quinton did seem pretty into Orla every time they were together but Orla always seemed to dismiss any attempt he made at being too flirty, “We used to fool around a bit, him and Rachel went to my sixth form whilst I was still in year 11,” They murmured as they continued with a slow voice, “But we stopped before this summer because um.... him and Rachel hooked up... and Rachel’s got a man now so Quin was feeling lonely and like no way would I get back with him after the Rachel thing,” Their face contorted with disgust simply at the idea. Mila didn’t know much about the Fae boy aside from the basics like he was from Sacramento and came to the UK for similar reasons to Mila except to study something so utterly boring Mila, for the life of her, couldn’t remember what it was. The two of them always seemed a little out of the general notion of the group. Not fully in but just there because the rest tolerated them. Orla shrugged, “So um... we’re icing them out,” Orla nodded to themself, continually flicking the embossed with floral lace buttons.  
“Ah...” Mila screwed up her face. “What a penis.”  
Orla glanced up at her with a wry smile, still fiddling with the buttons, “Coming from you... that’s an insult and a half!”  
“What?” Mila laughed, scratching the back of her neck before she could practically feel the light bulb flash above her head, “Oh fuck, yeah, the lesbian thing!”  
Zayn lifted his head, smirking at her, “Did you momentarily forget you don’t enjoy the peen?”  
“Oh fuck off!” Mila buried her face in her hands to avoid him.  
Stupid Zayn.  
“Did you just say “the peen”?” Mila heard Calum ask.  
Zayn snorted, “It’s my interest, Cal, I can call it what I like!”  
Orla frowned, “I think cock is my favourite name for it.” The way the words fell from their lips, slanted and posed, made it sound like they were spouting some philosophical bullshit or an excerpt from the Bible.  
Mila removed her hands from her face, copying Orla’s thoughtful expression, “Mine’s vagina,” She mused but only managed to keep the composure until her glossily painted lips twisted into a filthy grin.  
Out of nowhere a plush purple cushion smacked her in the face.  
“Hey!” She shouted through laughter, fingers wrapped around the quilted fabric.  
Standing in the door frame was Niall, wearing a long trench coat and looking like a cross between Sherlock Holmes and a flasher, a large smile bringing rippling creases in his face.  
Oh Niall, Mila smiled at him brightly amidst the giggles.  
“Hair’s not very... erect today,” Zayn taunted with a smirk that should not have been as hot as it was.  
“Yeah man, needs to be rubbed up the right way,” Calum joined in.  
“I could do it for you?” Orla teased, leaning forward and pressing their elbows onto their knees to have a poised position of smirking.  
Mila scoffed, “I personally wouldn’t want to.”  
More giggles.  
“You’s lot are disgusting,” He drawled in his Irish accent, shaking his head making the four of them burst out into fits of giggles.  
Niall took refuge next to Zayn who, even though he was the instigator of the whole thing, immediately returned to be a anti-social prick. Plus the L shaped sofa had more room than the one Calum, Orla and Mila were sharing. The sound of chewing gum and fluffy slippers dragging against laminate floor was audible over Niall’s obnoxiously loud furious typing into his phone.  
“What the fuck you wearing under that thing, Nialler?” Harry’s higher mancunian undertones that seeped into the general baritone of his accent as he walked back into the front room queried.  
Niall ran his fingers over the waterproof fabric, looking down then flicking his head back up in an instance, “Oh this old thing?”  
Harry narrowed his eyes at him, the crinkles on his brow forming and making hardened lines where once there was just smooth pale skin as he leant against the door frame.  
“Weeeell,” Niall drawled, happy about having caught the attention of everyone around him – even Calum had managed to stop drifting his fingers absent mindly through Orla’s ponytail to take note of whatever Niall was doing.  
Orla yelled in this laddish voice that Mila would never have imagined them conjuring up, “Strip for us, Neil!”  
The lot of them started cheering as Niall stood up, popping his hip out to the side as taking his time to pull at the buttons of his coat. From the tufts of light blonde marking his chest Mila knew that at least he was topless – just urging his adoring fans to whoop louder as he pushed a bare shoulder out of the coat. Then the whole black trench coat was dropped and Niall stood in the living room wearing nothing but a pair of billowy boxers with the design being block colours of the fucking Irish flag.  
“You twat,” Harry rolled his eyes as he chuckled into his stride back to the kitchen.  
The rest of them just roared into laughter, Zayn reaching up to flick Niall just above the waist band causing Niall to round on him with a string of curses including Niall referring to him as a ‘cheeky bugger’.  
“You look like fucking burnt toast,” Orla snickered, pressing the back of their hand to their mouth as they tried to stop their laughter. 

It was childish and silly but then again they were all legal adults at a fucking fancy dress party making dick jokes so, Mila hummed in thought as Orla let her pull in closer to their spindly body, it was all relevant. She had somehow bonded with Orla over penis and Calum even seemed to say more than a singular word of ‘Hello’ to her as the hour progressed through the arrival of the remainder of the guests. The party was an interesting concept; a bunch of 18+ year olds wearing clothes that were quite literally from the last century and drinking cold cans of beer that Niall had thrust into their laps. The lot of them easily filled the two sofas, even spilling out onto the floor or just simply overlapping onto one another as Mila was for Zayn. She had crawled into his lap around the same time Michael had turned up and decided to put Orla in the middle of 5SOS sandwich. Now Mila had nothing against the boys but they did stink of a changing room and were far too gangly for her liking; Zayn, on the other hand, was always smelling of the D&G perfume his kid sister had bought Mila for Eid – but he had hijacked seeing as they were “basically the same person” – plus he was nice and pocket sized. Although she sometimes did wish that he would take a leaf out of Harry’s book and go clean shaven, she hated cuddling against the fucking treacherous terrain of his face.  
“Swap,” Harry’s slow voice transpired down to Mila’s ear which wasn’t pressed into the white of Zayn’s shirt.  
“Don’t wanna,” Mila groaned, letting Zayn pet her hair as she held on tight to him.  
She felt Harry getting closer to her, the moisture from his breath dabbing into her ear as he murmured, “Pixie hasn’t got anyone to sit with...”  
Damn, that boy was really picking up on shit! Zayn had never seen Mila untangle herself from him so fast, accidentally hitting Owen in the face, apologising at the same time he let out a wincing ‘Ooft’. Harry looked like a prince. Prince fucking Harry! He easily pulled himself closer to Zayn despite having limbs which were comparable to a Crane fly’s, like Zayn he had opted out of the strictly 1920s style as his vintage white ruffle shirt looked more late 19th century than early 20th. The ostentatious shirt was coupled with a vintage looking black blazer and likewise to Orla, he had chosen to wear skinny jeans, except his were his typical black. Mila wondered if he wore anything other than skinny jeans and booty shorts as she wandered over to find Pixie in the kitchen trying to juggle a few trays of cookies.  
“Seriously?” Mila asked laughing a little.  
Pixie really was going to be the death of her! Who bakes cookies, muffins and a fucking two tiered Victoria sponge for a gathering? Well apparently, Pixie Elise Locke.  
“I like baking,” She gave Mila a feeble smile as she walked over to take a few trays off the struggling girl.  
“You and Harry are the dream team,” Mila hummed as she held two trays of cookies against one arm and the Victoria sponge in the other.  
Pixie blushed, “Could say the same about you and Zaynie...”  
It was a valid compliment. Her relationship with Zayn was very similar to Pixie’s with Harry. People did refer to them as the dream team and they did spend too much time with each other to the extent they were practically interchangeable. Mila smiled small, quick and easily missable, shaking her head a little.  
“Okay but since when did people decide calling Zoom Zoom ‘Zaynie’ was a thing?” Mila asked, tone trembling on fake horror as she avoided Pixie’s comparison to her and Harry because no fuck, Mila would not be having that. Pixie drawing comparisons like that was like Pixie saying that like Zayn and Harry they should be dating. But of course the only drawing here was Mila drawing intangible conclusions.  
Pixie giggled, hoisting another tray of cookies and a tin of muffins into her own arms, “Drunk Harry is the best Harry!”  
Pixie was going to kill Mila was a fucking adorable giggle whilst she was looking like THAT. Pixie’s figure was just classical, a pin-up girl would die to look like her and, not to be extreme, but Mila felt like she would die for Pixie – for other reasons. In that dress, the dress that she knew she would be wearing when the bet ended because no way could she out drink Harry Styles, she just looked hot. In fact hot wasn’t even the right word, Mila decided as she followed Pixie down the hall to the front room where the party – or rather gathering – was occurring. Pixie’s look that night wasn’t replicable to a temperature, she wouldn’t say she was hot nor would Mila would not compare her to a summer’s day no matter how lovely Pixie was. There probably was an adjective out there fitting of Pixie Elise Locke but at that moment in time, Mila did not have capacity of mind or vocabulary to find one. 

“Chinese or pizza?” Niall grunted as he sat wedged between Harry’s friend, Nick, and Luke from where he sat on the floor with his back to the wall and the large slash windows looming above his dishevelled dyed blonde hair.  
“The fuck, Neil?” Pixie snapped from where she was tucked under Mila’s arm, near the door but even closer to the radiator (thankfully), “Harold and I have been slaving and you just wanna order in?”  
“Penny, I’m going to hike Machu Picchu in the New Year!” He reminded her, “I love you and Horton but I’ve gotta keep me eyes on me waistline!”  
“Look Nialler, I don’t take any form of science but -,” Ashton started, the smirk and taunt audible in his voice.  
“But nothing, Irwin!” Niall interjected, his voice shrill and reaching heights Mila could never imagine, “I’m gonna get both,” He looked up, looking like a mad cross between Peter Pan and a furby “Thanks for paying by the way Hazza!”  
“Fucking freeloader,” Harry grumbled as he smiled fondly at Niall.  
“Love you Daddy Styles!” Niall shouted as he scrambled out of the room followed by Michael and Orla; Michael and Orla who had been awfully close the whole evening and were basically leaving poor Calum as a third wheel on his phone playing the Kim Kardashian game.  
Harry barely even batted an eyelid at Niall’s comments, pressing his lips to his bottle and taking a few gulps before handing it over to Zayn. 

What a fucking weirdo.

The environment was oddly relaxed. 

Sure Mila had expected something a bit wilder, all the housewarmings she had been to since she migrated tended to end up in the police popping over for a little chat but this was just them, her friends, sitting around, eating the goods and listening to whatever music chosen by whoever could access their Spotify playlist first.  
“What did you get?” Luke piped up as the three sauntered back into the room.  
“3 margheritas, 2 meat feasts, 2 pepperonis, one Hawaiian because Orlando is a nutter,” Niall told him as he flummoxed back next to Ashton, “and Orla allegedly knows Cantonese so they ordered for us.”  
“How many languages do you know?” Landon, or Orlando/Lan, asked as he grinned at Orla; his voice loud enough to be heard above the regained hum of St Vincent.  
Mila had seen the boy around campus with Harry and Nick; he looked like Harry a lot, same long curly hair, same pale China doll face and broad nose. He was like a fucking lankier doppelganger. He was also one of Orla’s friends, apparently, but Mila couldn’t figure out if he was more to them. Especially as they had been surgically attached to Michael Clifford’s hip since he had turned up with damn drawn on wrinkles, an old off-pink frock and kitten heels – Lady Violet, apparently.  
“Um... Four? Yeah four fluently, and a few others but fractured,” Orla hummed sliding back onto the sofa but choosing to sit on the side closer to where Landon sat, perched on the arm, “Tagalog, Cebuano, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean and a little bit of Kiwi.”  
Zayn whistled, applauding languidly, “Well fuck.”  
“I know a few!” Pixie grinned, “Harry and I are both fluent in French! And I’m fluent in German.”  
Pixie looked so proud, it was then that Mila realised she hadn’t been addressing the room but had only been speaking to her. Fuck.  
“I speak Urdu and a little German too,” Mila replied, numbly.  
“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” Pixie beamed, eyes lighting up.  
Mila nodded, “Ja! Ich spreche Deutsch.”  
Pixie just beamed; Mila wanted to go get a couple solar panels and stick them in front of her – Pixie could probably provide the whole country with energy. 

Fuck. 

Mila was beyond smitten. 

“You look really nice,” Pixie blurted, breaking out a grin just a little.  
“Thank you,” Mila smiled, bowing her head as she noticed Pixie’s hand tentatively reach forward.  
“Is that chiffon?” Her voice was as soft as the silk Mila wore.  
Dumbly, Mila nodded, “Imported from Italy, I uh made this... um not the erm dress though, it’s from New Look.”  
“I’ve never seen embroidery this detailed from a high street store before,” Pixie gushed, running her fingers over Mila’s abdomen like it was nothing.  
“Oh it’s lace, I did... I did it,” Mila explained.  
“You’re so good,” Pixie smiled, fingers on Mila's thigh and looking up to her, from where she was buried under the nook of Mila’s arm.  
Mila felt heat rise to her cheeks and tried to stammer out a reply of some articulate structure, “T-t-thank you Pix....ie,” Her voice fluctuating down on the second syllable to at least several decibels lower.  
“Not many fashion students would do half what you do,” Pixie continued her string of compliments even as Orla and Calum strode past to gather the food.  
“You’re so -,” Mila choked, shaking her head, “Don’t worry, go get me a bit of margherita and a spring roll?”  
“Yeah sure,” Pixie gave her another dazzling smile, “I get it like,” She stumbled to stand, “Like you and Nick, you’re old! Can’t risk breaking a hip or something,” She smirked down at Mila before turning around, quickly, her simple but effective ponytail twirling in its unusually straight nature.  
“You little shit!” Mila called after her, watching Pixie’s hips sway from one side to another to the sound of chatter and the 1975. 

Harry’s music choice – obviously. 

Hipster piece of shit. 

People left; slowly but seriously traipsing out of Pixie’s house and stumbling through the dark streets of Bath without the beacon of light that was Pixie Elise Locke. And Mila was so in love; so in love with the literal enigma that was Nick Grimshaw. He was one of Harry’s friends, taking a post-graduate media course. He had murmured something on how he’d met Harry at a gay bar in Lansdowne during Harry’s first year. Mila was in love with him. He was just so positive, belting out the words to whatever Queen song Harry had forced Pixie to put on after an argument over London Grammar versus Queen and he was literally made of more limbs than Harry and Landon combined. She had been hanging onto him, arms draped over his sloping shoulders; letting his northern accent deteriorate with his alcohol levels increasing and his voice drifting down to her ear that was adjacent from his moist lips.  
“I wanna make a supersonic man out of you!” He sang with Mila, his deep off-tune warbling making her laugh as she tried to enunciate the lyrics to the best of her ability.  
Pixie was sat on one of the finally free sofas talking to Sage over a very much asleep Owen, the ginger threads of his hair needling into the sofa behind him as his girlfriend, still with a comforting hand on his, spoke to the pretty hostess about some music thing Mila hadn’t understood when Nick had swung her at arm’s length around the room and she still didn’t get after consolidating the words in her mind.  
“Mila,” Zayn called, one of the rare occasions he actually used her name to get her attention, he stood by the door with a pack of cigs in his back pocket and Ashton and Calum towering over him, “You coming?”  
“Nah Zee,” She drawled, smiling ambiently as Nick twirled her around, nearly causing her to trip as she forgot how restrictive wearing dresses were since the only time she wore anything close to a dress was for Weddings, “I’m good, babes!”  
“Suit yourself, Hussein,” He grinned at her, hand coiled around the door knob.  
“I will, Malik,” Her lip quirked as she heard the click of the door.  
Nick and Mila’s dance routine was worthy of Len Goodman’s infamous 7 – Zayn had gotten her into all the British classics faster than she could forget the u in colour – she was sure of it. 

Everyone was getting sleepier as the Saturday seeped to a Sunday. It was at this point, with moonlight bleeding in through the venetian blinds, that Niall had cracked out Pixie’s finest china tea cups, coupled with matching floral saucers, to splash shots of tequila into. The only way to have a tea party, Harry had laughed as Mila closed her eyes wincing at the burn gliding down at her throat. She was certain it was nearly 4am with Zayn wandering back in – having left the other two boys in the harsh cold – and being offered a scone overloaded with jam and cream by Pixie who tiptoed to feed it to him in this overly affectionate way she seemed to everything. She still managed to be buzzing, having drunk the least and still high off the fumes of sugar from all the baking she had done.  
“You two look like old Stoics,” Pixie grinned as she swiped her thumb at Zayn’s bottom lip, giggling a little as she accidentally set some cream into his neatly trimmed stubble.  
“Old stoics?” Mila questioned whilst Orla attempted a dutch braid in her hair.  
“Stowe boys,” Pixie explained, “My brother and Seth went there.”  
“So it’s posh?” Mila asked.  
Pixie laughed at the same time as Harry, his arms wrapped at Zayn and Zayn’s arms wrapped around Pixie as they sat on the bay window seat, which was had been upholstered since the first time Mila had seen it to look like it was some furnishing from the Capitol and not some Ikea pack. Pixie nodded gently, her delicate eyelashes fluttering over her squeezable cheeks and Mila had to turn away before she just ended up flat out staring at her. Mila was pretty sure that Pixie could simply breathe and her reaction would be something along the lines of: her lungs are the best lungs in the Lung Industry and did you see the way she changed oxygen to carbon dioxide??? Amazing. 

Yeah, Mila was so far gone for this girl and she didn’t even have a second to regret any of it. 

“Milaaaaa!” Pixie’s voice floated to her, she was stood by the front door after having let Sage and Owen out to the uber she’d ordered.  
“Mm?” Mila shouted back, her response muffled as Nick pressed the rim of a glass to her lips.  
She gulped down the contents of whatever as she realised that Pixie’s voice was like glitter the sweet trickling sound that managed to get everywhere and sparkled to everyone around, just like glitter.  
“You staying over?” She asked, stifling a delicate yawn.  
“Guess I could?” Mila murmured, wiping the corners of her mouth where the liquid had dripped out.  
“Well Haz and Zee are taking the spare room, so you can bunk with Cal, Orla or me,” Pixie said casually, eyes dancing and glittery voice dazzling.  
“Not me,” Calum and Orla snapped in unison.  
Mila rolled her eyes, “So I guess it’s me and you then Pixie.”  
“Ace,” Pixie beamed, smiling so wide that her eyes disappeared from the crinkles in her face, “Come with me!” She offered out her hand and Mila felt obliged to do as she said even though Nick had just whipped out his phone to fire up his snapchat.  
She followed Pixie down the hall and up the stairs into Pixie’s room, the cold light of the moon dashing in through the gaps in the curtains. She wasn’t exactly sure how this house managed to be all types of Georgian architectural masterpiece but still filled with a large abundance of sharp edged Swedish furniture - she loved it. She wondered how Pixie’s childhood home looked; a lot of people either emulated their childhood or completely went against it. Mila had emulated her mother with the same clutter and lack of structured system but also emulated Zayn by at least attempting to have one shelving unit in her bedroom. 

“What music do you like?” She asked, smiling widely and tugging down on the bodice of her dress.  
“Um RnB, classic hip hop and a bit of soul or motown,” Mila replied, sitting down on Pixie’s bed as she disappeared into her walk in closet.  
Pixie’s room still smelt of strawberries and it was still neat and quaint and Pixie. Pixie danced around her room, silently and towards the walk in closet.  
“My dad loves soul and motown,” Pixie giggled, “I mean that’s why I do a lot of ad libs and like the bassier notes.”  
“And what music do you like?” Mila asked, flopping back on Pixie’s bed, flattening the creases in the floral throw cover.  
“Indie folk, folk, indie rock and acoustic,“ Pixie told her, popping her head out and revealing that she had undone her ponytail, her once industrially straightened hair now frizzing.  
“So not really your forte?” Mila teased as she watching Pixie from her horizontal viewing point.  
“I make acoustic pop with a bit of motown influence,” Pixie explained, “Cal does a lot of pop punk but he also is really into RnB.”  
Mila nodded, smiling thoughtfully, “I mean your voice is perfect for what you make...” She propped herself up and tilted her head at Pixie, “Hey, if you don’t mind me asking but who inspired you?”  
“Corinne Bailey Rae,” She hummed, dipping back into the closet, “a bit of Mariah and Whitney and of course Amy but mainly Corinne...”  
“You knew Amy?” Mila asked, noting the ease on her lips around Amy’s name.  
Pixie murmured something unintelligible but Mila could tell it was a positive response, “Yeah my dad worked with her... and her god daughter, Dionne, a close friend of mine.”  
“That’s amazing,” Mila said in a hushed tone.  
“That’s show business,” Pixie muttered, from inside the closet, Mila could hear her sighing, “I also like Ed Sheeran, um London Grammar and Halsey... a few people Har or Cal like too listen to um the 1975, Lana, Panic and Transviolet.... Green Day...”  
Mila scoffed, “You listen to Green Day?”  
“Not voluntarily,” Mila could hear the smile on her lips, “Cal thinks it’s ethical to blast their music at 6 in the morning so!”  
“So no one’s around to enforce a healthy RnB diet into you?” Mila smirked. 

“Well who do you listen to?” Pixie was back out the closet now, no pun intended, wearing only an oversized emerald green hoodie which Mila recognised as Adidas from the mustard yellow insignia on the chest.  
“Kehlani, Jeremih, J. Cole, Miguel, Jhene Aiko, The Weeknd, Drake,” Mila shrugged as she heard Pixie shriek with laughter, “What?” Mila furrowed her brow as she looked pointedly at Pixie who had just reappeared.  
“You listen to sex songs!” Pixie giggled like a 12 year old.  
“I do not!” Mila gasped, eyes widening.  
“Often, often, girl I do this often, make that pussy popping, do it how I want it,” Pixie recited the lyrics in a monotone voice that ended up making Mila giggle as she pressed her face into Pixie’s rose coloured pillows.  
“Okay, okay!” She lifted her head so her eyes could focus on Pixie’s mischievous expression, “But what about Halsey? His head between my thighs? You know my tongue is a weapon... if you want to go to heaven you should fuck me tonight?”  
“It’s poetic!” Pixie crossed her arms over her chest.  
“Poetic?” Mila challenged.  
“Better than Hotline Bling! Drake’s just being a whiny micropenis that his girl moved on,” Pixie smirked.  
Mila gasped, melodrama oozing out of it as she clutched her chest, “Take that back! Hotline Bling is a masterpiece!”  
“Isn’t Jhene Aiko the person who said eat the booty like groceries?” Pixie reminded her.  
“You’re a toddler; you shouldn’t be listening to stuff like that!” Mila pouted as a bundle of fabric came flying out at her. 

“Your jammies,” Pixie shouted.  
It was a light grey t-shirt that had a faux breast pocket with a red heart and the word ‘LOVER’ on it. It didn’t look like Pixie’s since it was too long in the abdomen and too thin in the arms for her. She shrugged as she pulled it on over her head.  
“Need help?” Pixie asked, her voice louder and more coherent as Mila realised she had rejoined her properly in her bedroom.  
“Yeah uh the zip?” Mila murmured.  
She felt Pixie behind her, lifting up the back of the t-shirt and fumbling over Mila’s back to find the zip. Pixie’s breath on her neck as she tried to concentrate on the sound of the zip going down.  
“There you go,” Pixie whispered, stepping back as Mila slipping her arms out of the chiffon cap sleeves and eventually stepping out the dress.  
“Play me your favourite song,” Mila said gently, folding the dress over her arm and tugging the t-shirt over her thighs.  
Pixie nodded, stepping back into the closet and taking out two items of clothing.  
“Orla’s gym shorts, you haven’t got fat thighs like me so yeah,” Pixie shrugged non committally as she pulled on some boxer shorts that Mila assumed, like the top she was borrowing, didn’t actually belong to Pixie.  
“Hey! You have lovely thighs,” Mila tutted as she pulled on the shorts Pixie had given her.  
“But they’re just so!” Pixie waved her hand around then looked down at where the cotton clung to her thighs.  
Mila sighed loudly, stepping closer to Pixie so to prod her in the shoulder, “Hush now, play me that song, okay?”  
Pixie’s lip quirked as she moved to the ipad on her desk, Mila watched as Pixie moved to connect the ipad to a docking station, little gentle touches like she did with everything. Mila didn’t know much about folklore or mythology but she was certain she had heard somewhere that pixie’s were half demon and half angel; from knowing one for just over a month: Mila was certain that this was fact. 

Mila didn’t recognise the song. It was upbeat with a good steady drum pace and a sort of obscure overtone that Mila couldn’t quite place her finger on the genre. It definitely wasn’t indie, she could tell that much. Pixie smiled at her, looking at her through the false eyelashes. The voice is interesting, she hears ‘Hey girl’ and notices Pixie’s smile widen. His voice is powerful but alters before Mila can register how she feels about him.  
“Gave my first lap dance to this song,” Pixie confessed with a giggle, “And a bit more...”  
“A bit more?” Mila raised her eyebrows as Pixie bit her lip.  
“Well... first lap dance-blowie combo,” Pixie’s cheeks turned red, “It was earlier this year with this guy I met in Marbella...”  
“I thought you’d been with Seth since year 12?” Mila asked.  
Thank god for Wikipedia!  
“We were on a break,” Pixie shrugged then lifted her head to sing, “I’m down on my knees ready to... Hey hey hey!”  
She clicked in time with the song, strutting over to Mila who was once again sat on the bed.  
“And I love you more! More than you’ll ever know... and I need you more, more than you’ll ever know! So please don’t misbehave with me heart,” She belted out the lyrics but still kept control over her voice where she couldn’t reach the same about of driving force behind her vocals as he could.  
The song made Mila want to go put on some red lipstick and crush a man’s testicles under a pair of seven inch heels. Yet there was Pixie fucking serenading her! What was her life? Some show on the Disney channel? Fucking hell she wasn’t in High School Musical! Normal people don’t just sing to you at 6am in their bedroom. Even with the song in the background, Pixie just kept this insane eye contact with Mila only closing her eyes when she powered through on the vocal runs that made her use all ounce of energy to get out.  
“Who sings that?” Mila asked once the chorus started again.  
“Nathan Sykes, he was in this boyband I was obsessed with back in the day but they broke up last year,” Pixie smiled, twirling around to the music, “I had the biggest crush on him... He was probably my first crush! My dad took me to meet him at the Capital Summertime Ball and he told me had heard my cover of Famous - one of the songs he did on tour. He loved it. And my response was: Your thighs look amazing in those trousers.”  
Mila shucked the laughter out of her to mask pain of the last remaining wisps of hope on Pixie’s sexuality were torn from her with the pronouns and ‘the biggest crush on him’. She tried to smile through it but everything was blaringly obvious even with Pixie so close to her, even with Pixie opening up to her about things; Mila had to accept that Pixie was straight. She just didn’t want to.  
“Aye you giving head to Mila or what?” Niall’s voice was audible under Nathan Sykes’ insane vocals.  
“Fuck off!” Pixie rolled her eyes as Niall entered the room.  
Niall stuck his tongue out at Pixie before turning to Mila, “I want you.”  
“Barking up the wrong tree there mate,” Mila smirked scratching at her eyebrow.  
“For a smoke,” Niall laughed, shaking his head.  
“Ah yes!” Mila jumped up, “What a legend!” She jogged over to him with a gleeful look.  
“Bye Mila,” Pixie’s voice stuck to her as she closed the door to her bedroom, stuck to her like glitter. 

Shrouded in the darkness of Queen’s Square, Mila and Niall sat on a bench after Calum had donated him some jeans and a t-shirt that were far more suitable attire to be out in a posh little garden square having a smoke than his Irish flag undies. Mila watched the end of his cigarette glow orange, the darkness doing wonders for the little bumps on his profile, the way it played over the little indentation of his chin like that.  
“So,” Niall asked, drawing the cigarette from between his pink lips and breathing out coils of smoke, “You like Pixie?”  
Mila choked. The smoke pouring down into her lungs, that had been running down, down, down was being coughed back up as she spluttered, “What the fuck Niall?”  
“You like Pixie!” He grinned, devilishly as Mila’s chest burned from the smoke and her cheeks burned from the fucking Leprechaun’s words.  
Mila shook her head, looking down at the cigarette betwixt her fingers, “I mean of course I like Pixie, she’s a friend?”  
“You know what I mean!” Niall rolled his eyes, recoiling back against the bench and placing the cigarette back between his lips.  
Mila turned to him, watching him take a drag as she narrowed her eyes. Not even Zayn had made more than a fleeting tease about her blatant crush on Pixie and Harry just seemed too nice to say anything. Yet here was Niall pointing out the obvious like he was Sherlock fucking Holmes! Mila was outraged, she had been so content with the fact that everyone knew she was blindly crushing on Pixie but no one was pointing it out. Stupid Niall!  
“Okay yes maybe I do,” Mila groaned, dropping the cigarette to the floor and stamping it out with her heel.  
“Ha! Yes I knew it!” He cackled, punching the air as the cigarette drooped dangerously close to his chin.  
Mila scrubbed a hand over her face, ruining her once perfect eyeliner, “But she’s got a boyfriend anyway so there’s that.”  
“You didn’t hear this from me, but he’s a proper shit,” Niall nodded, standing up and stamping out his own cigarette.  
“Nah I’ve heard from plenty of people,” Mila laughed tiredly.  
“Well then,” Niall offered Mila his hand to help her up, “I say you’re in for a shot.”  
“Loving the optimism, Niall,” She chuckled, walking with him to his car which he was borrowing at the moment.  
He patted her on the back before ducking into the red Volvo, “I have faith in you, plus between me and you... Pixie’s not exactly straight.”  
Not exactly straight...Did Niall Horan just save her entire life?  
“What?” Mila’s eyebrows hit her hairline.  
“Night, Mila!” He shouted obnoxiously, knowing that he’d just altered the spinning axis of Mila’s entire world.  
She just stood, gawking at him driving off down the street. 

Niall was a prick.


	7. Chapter 6

“Zayn Javadd Malik!” Mila grumbled as she stumbled into the cramped kitchenette, “Why the ever loving fuck are you awake before noon?”  
He looked fucking spent and Mila couldn’t blame the poor boy. Harry had gotten him into this crazy fitness regime that included running around block, over the different bridges that crossed the Avon and to Harry’s flat and back. Mila assumed that the time they spent at Harry’s place also included a quick bang or something of that type since Zayn always looked slightly elated coming back at 4am when Mila was going to bed and she knew for certain it wasn’t because his serotonin levels were up from the jog. Zayn didn’t exercise for fun. He exercised for extra Harry association time.  
Fucking loser.  
“Well Mila Hussein, I’m being a fucking lovely boyfriend and going down to Devon to shoot a music video for my boyfriend’s best friend,” Zayn grunted into a chipped mug of tea.  
“Where is the curly haired duo then?” She asked, pulling up a stool and sitting opposite him at the pull out table.  
“He’s driving Pixie over,” Zayn yawned and separated his long eyelashes that were clumped together with sleep.  
Mila nodded, “Make us a cup would you? I’m gonna shower.”  
“So you can be nice and fresh for bae?” Zayn chuckled, dipping his mouth back into the tea, nose getting boiled slightly.  
“Zayn, I’ve told you already, Harry’s irrevocably in love with me and it’s not my fault,” She sighed, standing up and attempting to stride through the organised clutter, “I’m just irresistible!”  
“Nah I mean Pixie,” Zayn grinned, leaning back in the fold up garden chair he had taken from his parent’s back up in Bradford.  
“I hope you choke on some really hot coffee,” She snarled, feeling her blood run cold as she watched Zayn looked pleased as punch with himself in nothing but a pair of briefs.  
She hated Zayn, she was sure of it.  
“They’ll be here in 20 minutes!” Zayn shouted as Mila sidled out into the box sized room into the even smaller room of the bathroom unit.  
A hairbrush came at him, soaring through the air and narrowly missing his dishevelled pink tipped quiff.  
“That’s assault!” He screamed at the closed door where Mila was snickering away behind. 

Mila loved their apartment. She had luckily missed out on having to go to the international living areas due to her British father and passport in the second term. That had meant she was able to split the fees of a place with Zayn, even though the university didn’t usually allow boys and girls to share a dormitory but they both plead the fact that they were both flaming homosexuals so nothing dodgy would ever occur between them.  
The whole dormitory was a mess, Mila was only really enthused to clean it when either the Dean was coming or Zayn was screaming at her to pick up her shit because Harry was coming over. That day the main living area was surprisingly untidy but it sounded like Harry and Pixie were just stopping to pick Zayn up rather than spending too long there. Mila realised, as the water droplets steamed up the glass divider of the shower, that Pixie had never been inside her dorm. Pixie hadn’t seen the bubbling ugly wallpaper that Mila and Zayn had tried to cover with as much of Zayn’s artwork as they could. Pixie hadn’t seen the shelves adorned with their pretentious fashion and art books above on the blink old laptop that they used instead of paying for a TV license. Pixie hadn’t seen Mila’s room, Mila’s room with the sewing machine and the reels of fabric propped against one corner to avoid the damp in the other corner that was covered with the calendar Zayn had given her since his mum had bought it for him but it had kittens on it and he was allegedly working on being more masculine. Pixie hadn’t seen her collection of old and new records that she used as makeshift bedside table when she wasn’t sliding a vinyl record out to use on the decks that were in the front room. Pixie hadn’t seen any of it! And yet Mila wasn’t prepared for her to even sit on the old sunken in floral sofa as she waited for Zayn. 

She heard the doorbell ring as she pulled on a black Adidas hoodie that she had cropped and altered herself, since they didn’t sell the running crop hoodies in the UK, and then she heard Zayn buzz them up. At least she had slightly done her makeup, she sighed as she exited her bedroom.  
“Harry, Pixie, hi,” She beamed as she put in a pair of hooped gold earrings.  
“Hi Mila!” Pixie chirped whilst Harry was more preoccupied with sucking Zayn’s face off.  
Mila narrowed her eyes at her, “You look different?”  
Pixie looked down at her own outfit. She looked cute - but that was a given - in a ribbed grey turtleneck that was incredibly snug and a black set of dungarees with a fresh pair of sneakers which only made her look even smaller.  
“Oh I’m not wearing make up?” Pixie offered tugging a strand of hair, that hadn’t made it into her bun, behind her ear, “I’ve got a makeup artist at the house.”  
“I told her that she shouldn’t go out like,” Harry said teasingly as he draped an arm over Zayn who had changed into a white crop top that showed off his toned abs which Mila decided he had stolen because he was the type not bother get the remote if it wasn’t in reaching distance, “Might scare people.”  
“Asshole,” Pixie said to him, flipping the bird.  
“Nah you just look younger, I guess,” Mila shrugged, smiling a little.  
Pixie smiled back at her, “You coming with?”  
Mila shook her head.  
“Come please!” Pixie pleaded, making her anime eyes 12 times wider, “I don’t trust Orla enough to help me pick an outfit!”  
“You haven’t decided yet?” Mila’s eyes widened too but in horror.  
“Well Zayn did the mock up drawings and well my sister in law got a wardrobe sent down there and I was going to choose when I got there,” Pixie explained looking a little out of her depth.  
Mila had been at the styling of a music video before when she was interning. It was a for a band that had come off one of those talent shows and the entire thing took at least two weeks so set up – and that was just the clothing alone.  
“I’ll come,” Mila said, “Just let me get my sewing kit.”  
“Why?” Pixie asked.  
“Oh honey,” Mila said in a gentle tone, “If you haven’t tried on these clothes, they might not fit you so I’ll alter them for you.”  
Pixie looked at Mila like she had just offered her the whole world and Mila felt fucking ecstatic.  
“Hurry up then,” Zayn snickered and Mila realised she had just been staring at Pixie with this dumb lopsided smile, “And you’ll need a few changes of clothes.”  
She wanted to set herself on fire. She nodded apprehensively then disappeared into her room as she watched Harry smack Zayn in the chest for trying to laugh at her. 

Zayn was a prick. 

It was a two hour journey from Bath down to the house. Mila learnt that the entire “squad” were already there, it was a 28 bedroom mansion in north Devon that Pixie’s dad’s family owned. Anders Lambrinos, Pixie Elise Locke’s father. Apparently that girl had more names than Jessica Lange had roles in AHS. Elisabethia Apollana Lambrinos was the name on her birth certificate but upon the divorce from her father she was immediately referred to as Elizabethia Ann Parkier but she was given the choice of changing her name when she was thirteen – just as her brother had. Pixie Elise Locke was born.  
Pixie sat in the back of Harry’s car next to Mila, falling asleep on her but waking up whenever Harry put on a song that she knew the words to thus ending up in a sing off between the two of them. Harry explained that it was a four day event to film a 3 minute 17 second music video. Pixie’s teacher had specifically instructed that you weren’t allowed to get help from people off campus and you couldn’t spend over budget. Hence why Pixie was hosting the entire squad, and extended friends, at her father’s house. Ellada Manor was a mansion the Lambrinos’ had owned since they had moved from Greece to England back in the mid 18th century so seeing as it was her childhood home she couldn’t be penalised for using it. The clothing had all been free items given to her by different fashion houses and handed down from relatives so they couldn’t be counted either. Her film team was made up of Ashton, Bryana, Landon and a few of his mates. Bryana was also doing the behind the scenes shots. Her makeup artist was someone Owen knew from one of the drama shows and Sophia. Mila was the stylist. Orla was directing since they were the only one who had been behind a camera before. And Harry was going to act as Pixie’s love interest. Zayn had showed her the mock up art and it looked fucking amazing, hilarious, dramatic and like Pixie would be starring in it. 

Fucking amazing. 

The house was gorgeous. 

If it could even be referred to as a house. 

It was enormous, sat amongst a staggering amount of fresh green gardens that emulated the time it had been built. They had eased down a stretch of gravelly road where at the further end a whole convoy of cars were already parked, some of which Mila recognised as being owned by her friends whilst others were just unrecognisable akin to Kylie Jenner’s car collection she had spent a good month gushing over. Once they had parked she was met with an entry way that was to such an expanse it reminded Mila of a mouth of a river gushing out to an ocean. By the white doors with opulent glass windows, that allowed Mila to just about see what was inside, where large marble vases overflowing with roses and ivy trickling down either side of the door like Angel Falls. It was even more extravagant up close, even more beautiful too, and Mila stared up at as she exited the vehicle with her jaw practically touching the gravel at her feet. She felt like she needed Zayn to take a picture of her in front of Harry’s Porsche 911 Sport Classic – as he had mentioned coyly to Zayn when he had asked what the motherfuck he was driving which has caused Pixie to sleepily murmur how she had gotten her ex Louis a Porsche Boxster – in front of this fucking castle! But instead she stared between Pixie and the “house” with confusion, but also mainly awe. Mila knew she was rich, a Dame and had royalty in her veins, but she had never expected something so fucking fancy. No wonder she drove a vintage Austin Healey. 

“Welcome to my house,” came Pixie’s sudden interruption to Mila’s state of shock. 

“Well fuck me,” She muttered to Zayn as he directed her to the front door.  
“I’d rather not,” He grimaced.  
“Fuck you,” She retorted, pushing him away and irritably rolling her eyes.  
“Tell that to Harold, would you?” He chuckled, pulling her back teasingly, “’Cor imaging shagging in a house like this? And I thought his parent’s place was posh.”  
“What was his like?” She asked in a quiet voice as Harry held the door open for them.  
“He has fucking gargoyles, babe,” Zayn deadpanned as the four of them strolled into the main area, with Mila half expecting to be greeted by Alfred from Batman, “Gargoyles.”  
Mila stifled a laugh as she shook her head. 

“Miss Lambrinos,” An elderly gentleman in a smart suit and tailcoat said, “Mr Styles!”  
“Charlie,” Harry grinned.  
“Our butler,” Pixie explained, smiling widely at him, “Charles, darling, is Daddy home?”  
He made his way down the staircase that reminded Mila of something out of Hogwarts, “Sadly no, Miss Lambrinos. But there is a platter set out for you and your pals in the main hall.”  
Main hall? Fucking hell, this was insane.  
“Thank you, Charlie,” She said in a voice that sounded slightly sadder than it had earlier, “Please send the remaining staff home, with extra pay not to tell Daddy?”  
“Mr Lambrinos knows you are here, correct?” Her butler asked as Harry started to direct her and Zayn to the main hall.  
“Of course Daddy knows,” Pixie assured him, stepping closer and taking his wrinkled hands in her own, “I just wouldn’t want a full house of staff here whilst I have no need for them.”  
Charles nodded, “I shall do that for you immediately, Miss Lambrinos.”  
“Efharisto,” She said before tearing herself from him.  
She sashayed away from him, joining the other three at the open wooden doors leading to a kitchen with marble tabletops and wooden doors. An island was set in the middle with a silver tray of champagne flutes filled with champagne – of course. Harry automatically swiped a glass as though it was second nature. It was at that moment she realised that for Harry it probably was. He just seemed a little distant from Pixie’s life of extravagance with his little apartment overlooking the river rather than a townhouse in one of the richest areas of Bath. But he had grown up with Pixie; he had a rich father who owned a law firm, a divorcee mother who was making a name for herself as a Cheshire socialite and an older sister who was one of the most renowned travel journalists. She thought, from the taken aback look on Zayn’s face, that he realised at that moment too.  
“Do you want a glass?” Harry asked looking timidly from Zayn to Mila who just stood in the doorway gawking whilst Pixie was on her second glass.  
Apparently family homes weren’t the easiest thing for her.  
“Bit early?” Zayn raised his eyebrows.  
“Never too early, Zaynie,” Pixie told him wryly. 

The personality came with the territory, Mila assumed as she reached forward to take a glass. She noted it was bright, very bright and how there was many windows, letting in the late October light of the early morning still not having passed noon, so there was no crevice that could store any darkness. It was very exposed, all curtains drawn and the smell of old money hanging heavy in every quarter. Aside from the pungent stench of money Mila could also smell strawberries, just like Pixie consistently smelt off, mixed with the centrepiece of lilies and faded cologne. The outside just made Mila look out in awestruck terror, like a fortress that was untouchable. But the inside revealed so much, as though it wanted to do, as though the home had nothing to hide. It was almost intense, Mila thought, as she took steps in her Nike high tops across the slate tiles as she followed Pixie. She stalked ahead, wordlessly, taking sips of champagne every now and then. Mila had always known Pixie to be talkative, to be the life of any room even when she was half asleep, it was just her nature. Yet now the only sound was the sole of her Adidas sneakers smacking through the empty halls, echoing through the high ceilings and Grecian frieze paintings as well as old Ancient Greek statues that were at every stretch of hall. Mr Lambrinos was very proud of his heritage - obviously. 

Mila listened in to Zayn and Harry’s conversation, adding in points when she could as she watched Pixie’s eyes drift around the halls she probably would’ve ran through as a child. Mila couldn’t imagine seven year old Pixie running through the halls, her bare feet touching the slate that was cold even under the thick soles of her sneakers - it was absolutely murder on her feet anyway. It was quite an open building but everything just looked so well kept, too neat and just like how Pixie’s house was; as though comfort had been the aim but the outcome, like a set up in Ikea, had been a little too much like a museum. 

“Babe!” Niall erupted, jumping off a red stool that was in front of an old looking mahogany bar where Michael was mixing drinks.  
The main hall looked like a grown up play room (and no, not like 50 Shades). Luxurious sofas were strewn across what looked, or what used to be, a ballroom and the large windows were swung open so that the translucent white curtains billowed from the breeze of the sea that was just off the cliff face where the five acres of grounds ended. Everyone looked very relaxed about being at Pixie’s house whilst Mila felt ever so uncertain as she flummoxed down next to Nick. She looked around, catching Pixie’s face light up upon seeing Niall and the rest of them; it really was the whole squad – and then some. She settled into the red sofa which looked odd, just placed in the middle of the dance floor amongst the rest of the valley of strangely placed sofas.  
“Right,” Orla strolled into the main hall through the entrance opposite to the one Mila and the others had come through, “We’ve surveyed the rooms and we’re just going to do mock shots today, see how Harry and Pixie work together... the usual drill.”  
Behind them stood the filming team, a group of six including Landon who was closest to Orla, in fact he was practically leaning against them and holding a camera unlike anything Mila had seen in a long time.  
“Mila, nice to see you,” They beamed, tossing their hair over their shoulder, “Pix says you’re helping with styling? You, Pix and H can alter clothes tomorrow but today you can find the clothes... once we test the Dream Team’s chemistry.”  
Orla was certainly taking the directing role very seriously.  
“Right,” Orla pulled a single wooden chair to the middle of the room for everyone to see, “Lan and Tilly set up two cameras, Bry could you upload the pictures to the dropbox file and Harry sit on that chair please, honey,” They instructed and surprisingly, people listened.  
The second Harry’s ass was seated on the wooden square; Orla straddled his thighs, sliding forward so their crotch corresponded above his. Harry looked a little startled but settled into Orla once they had found their place. They called Pixie over so she could watch Orla’s movement.  
“Zoom Zoom, take notes,” Mila whispered as she slunk next to him at the bar where Niall was now reseated.  
“I’ve got a longer abdomen than you, so it will be easier for you to press your boobs into his face,” Orla said strategically, “So roll your hips in an eight, bounce around a bit, you know how to give a lap dance, but just make sure you’re holding his face and look like you have control over him.”  
Pixie nodded, waiting for Orla to get off Harry then taking place on his lap.  
“Play the song,” Orla said to Grimmers who was sat by an old looking stereo.  
Harry sat lifeless, like a ragdoll, as Pixie rotated her hips, grinding down on him to the beat of the song. She recognised Pixie’s voice instantly, singing out a mantra in way her almost far too powerful for Mila to comprehend even under the pop motown beat. It almost sounded straight off of Chicago, murderess pop music always got Mila to relent to saying she hated the popular genre. Pixie took Harry’s angular jaw in her hands, lifting his face up and trying to give him a look that was a cross between scrutinizing and sexy and somehow it worked. But the moment they took to stare into each other’s eyes was the moment all elements of sex appeal were lost. Pixie laughed manically, bowing her head into his shoulder to get her eyes off Harry who was also cackling madly. They tried to regain composure but they were both laughing far too much after being friends for far too long to successfully carry out any attempt of acting like they found the other sexually appealing.  
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Orla rolled their eyes, waving their hand to get Landon to stop filming.  
Pixie got off Harry, still laughing giddily as she helped Harry up. He stumbled over to Zayn and Mila, wedging himself between them as he let out short chuckles every so often.  
“Right,” Orla stood up, “All the lads form an orderly queue and we’ll see who works best with our girl!” 

It was quite hilarious, Mila had to admit, watching all of Pixie’s male friends let Pixie dry hump them then dip her thumbs into the crease of their lips so make out with them – actor style. Calum had just looked lifeless; like he didn’t care that his female companion was grinding on his crotch and singing about how she was going to ‘Kill a man’. Whilst Niall had gotten too excited and Pixie had shrieked when she realised that beneath her he was getting half hard from all the circles of eight she was making with her ass. Liam had a similar fate to Harry where he just started giggling incessantly, especially when he had made eye contact with Sophia. When Ashton had stepped up to the call, Pixie had turned him down because he didn’t fit the aesthetic she was looking for. Apparently she didn’t like the 5SOS boys much because Michael and Luke also didn’t fit the aesthetic. Nick had just started cackling when Pixie had facepalmed that he had even bothered to line up for the roll of her love interest. With Owen, Pixie tried too hard whilst his girlfriend sat in the background sniggering with Orla.  
“Fuck,” Orla groaned, shaking their head, “Do you know who would be good for this?”  
“Louis?” Pixie asked, still sat on Owen’s thighs, her fingers in his hair.  
“Exactly,” Orla slapped their thigh, “He’d be perfect! He’s not too tall, he looks hot as fuck with a quiff and his thighs are perfect for humping!”  
“I like how you’ve really thought about this,” Calum teased.  
“What can I say, I look out for talent!” Orla smirked at him whilst Pixie stuck two fingers up at them.  
It was an entirely strange affair. Pixie was a great actress, nonetheless. Harry had muttered something about how she did horse riding so of course this was a thing she was good at. Mila had scoffed because no way was it just that! This kid who had spent most of the time Mila had known her giggling, smiling so wide and generally being all kinds of adorable was in the process of bouncing up and down on the crotch of whichever man, or boy, Orla presented in front of her. Like what sort of friendship goals? Mila wondered if Zayn would ever do something like that for her. 

Speaking of Zayn...

“Zaynie,” Pixie whined, holding out her arms and making grabby hands at him.  
“Alright fine,” He groaned, striding over to Pixie as he took a seat, then Pixie took a seat – on him.  
Mila had known he had done a couple modelling jobs in his time for extra money, so the smoulder he gave Pixie as she lifted his jaw was well practised. He seemed to be doing this sexy pout which on anyone else would’ve made them look constipated but on Zayn it made Mila wonder if she should be congratulating Harry on getting with someone as fucking hot as her best friend. Maybe she should be congratulating herself for having such a hot best friend? She had barely seen Pixie make out with Seth but watching Pixie ghost her lips over Zayn’s, their noses bumping until she finally settled her lips on Zayn’s and they kissed – not actor style.  
“Is she trying to steal my man?” Harry asked Mila in a low voice.  
“Babe your man got stole,” Mila confirmed, nodding her head slowly.  
“Good to know,” Harry chuckled, reaching over to ruffle Mila’s hair, fondly.  
Orla clapped loudly, a happy look on their face, “Zayn you have the role! So I guess Mila will have to alter everything to make it a little smaller, the trousers shorter in the legs, etcetera.”  
Zayn gave Orla a look, his expression dead behind his eyes, “Yeah I guess she will.”  
Mila felt all eyes on her as she realised that she was now expected to go do a job of altering two peoples clothes, which according to Zayn’s mock up sketches consisted of at least eight outfit changes between them, which usually took a team of at least four.  
“Oh yeah,” Mila staggered to stand up, “I’ll get right to that...”  
Pixie cleared her throat, “I’ll take you! I guess you know Zaynie’s measurements but you don’t know mine so um... yeah...”  
Mila nodded, “Cool.” 

Pixie had lead her up the stairs, the luxurious stair case that was as elaborate as something out of the Natural History Museum; made up of shining, smooth wood that glinted as each stretch reflected against the light of the crystal chandeliers that hovered above. There was a Greek statue, Mila was certain she had seen at the V&A just a few months back, that was pushed into the centre of the intermediate landing before the stairs continued up to yet another landing which Mila assumed was the beginning of the second floor. Green potted plants lined the deep mahogany rails as she followed Pixie down the landing; she felt like she was in some Monet painting. Everything looked so good from afar, she considered as she stopped outside a door painted white that stood out amongst the other brown wooden doors, but up close things were a mess. Not in looks - definitely not - there was no detail of Ellada House that wouldn’t have been responsible for a perfectionist’s orgasm but Pixie was a mess. Pixie’s dad was a mess. It was a mess that someone Pixie’s age could waltz around a house like this, that was Grade II English heritage site, and look so at ease: like it was the only place she belonged - Like it was the only place right for her. 

“So yeah, the rail should be in my walk-in... room? I don’t know it’s roughly the size of the room back in Queen’s but yeah,” She blushed vibrantly as she pushed into her room with the force of her ass.  
Today had been so strange. Things she had never associated with Pixie were now the most glaringly obvious aspects about her. Pixie raised her eyebrows at Mila, awaiting a response as she walked backwards towards another door. Mila just nodded, stunned into silence by Pixie room as she trailed her fingers over the quilt on the bed. The walls were a similar colour to the pink in her room back in Bath, except Mila could easily see the places where blue tac had once been used to fasten whatever posters of people she used to idolize, and all the furnishings were more a shade of cream than the white in Pixie’s room in bath. But overall it all looked rather too similar all except the chest of drawers that were in front of a feature wall of shimmering pink glitter and had a collection of framed photographs on top of it. It was cluttered almost, organised chaos with mismatching frames that Mila felt obliged to inspect. She first noticed a picture of a much younger Pixie, kind of looking like the girl who had greeted her earlier that morning, with pigtails and a gap-toothed grin standing close next to an older man with the same emerald green eyes as hers: Anders Lambrinos wearing a Ralph Lauren polo neck and striped shorts looking around late forties. They looked happy, both smiling, Anders with sunglasses pushed into his receding hairline and the coastline that looked far too lovely to be that of one in England. Next to that, in an ugly looking frame that looked straight out of the kids section in Claire’s, was Pixie looking a little older but with wilder curls and braces next to a pale broad boy a few years older than her with dark hair like a pom-pom. She realised slowly that it was Harry; this sudden realisation caused her to instantly grab her phone to snapchat the picture of H to Zayn. The next was a simple black frame holding a picture of Pixie standing in front of two balloons that read out ‘16’ in pink glistening plastic, she had her eyes closed and was pouting obnoxiously as she was sandwiched between Orla and Calum who looked equally young and equally off their faces for those who were underage. A picture of Pixie and Harry, his hair quaffed upwards, Niall, who had braces, and hair that was far too bleached, and a girl with dyed purple ends that Mila didn’t recognise but looked like Harry – maybe his sibling? – from the same party was next to it. The next noticeable picture, one that stood out to her was a one of a gorgeous looking blonde woman, she was tall and slim with a dress that looked to be some kind of 90’s Chanel and holding the hand of a boy who looked about thirteen whilst she lazily draped an arm over Anders who was shorter than her and holding a tiny little toddler’s hand with frizzy blonde hair who just had to be Pixie. A family portrait in front of the Ellada House, with wind sweeping through all of their hair and none of them knowing that in a few years Charlotta Parkier would be taking her son and his half sister away from Anders and up to Cheshire to Nathan’s father.

Mila sighed, stepping back from the pictures and hearing Pixie swear loudly from struggling with the rack of clothing.  
“Need any help, Pixie?” She called out.  
She heard Pixie’s heavy breathing, a sharp inhale then exhale followed by, “No thank you, I’m – SHIT – fine!”  
Mila snickered as she watched Pixie back into the room pulling a metal rail of clothes, which was just a bit taller than her, with her.  
“There we go!” Pixie grinned at Mila.  
“Nice picture of Horton,” Mila chuckled, tapping on the plastic covering the picture.  
Pixie snickered, leaving the rack and sprinting over to Mila, “You were looking at my pictures!”  
“Maybe,” Mila felt heat rise to her cheeks as Pixie continued laughing.  
“My first magazine job,” Pixie hummed, picking up a framed magazine cover, “I’ve got another with Nylon soon.”  
“What’s it for?” Mila asked, taking the magazine cover from her.  
“Rising stars with famous daddies,” Pixie shrugged, placing the magazine cover back between a picture of Pixie and – fucking hell – Michael Jackson and a picture of Pixie holding her driver’s license.  
“You seriously call your father...Daddy?” Mila tried to stop herself doing a full body shudder at that concept.  
Pixie laughed, bowing her head then lifting up, “Um yeah? I mean it was a bit awkward when I was dating Louis...”  
Mila nearly choked on her own lungs, “You... have a daddy kink?”  
“Only for Lou,” Pixie bit her lip as her eyes glinted at Mila mischievously.  
“Why’d you break up?” Mila finds herself asking because well Pixie seemed so fond of him and every one of her friends did. It made no sense that she was now with Seth - Seth who wasn’t there whilst Louis was, at least in spirit.  
Pixie blinked at Mila, opening her mouth then clamping her lips back together in a thin line.  
“Sorry erm that was really intrusive of me,” Mila turned away then started towards the rail of clothes they had left behind, “Let’s get started.”  
Pixie nodded in silence, following behind Mila. The clothing all had coat hangers with the iconic Harrods tag wrapped around it, the new head of the shop was known for his affiliations with Grecian and Arabian businessmen so obviously donating to the very affluent and prestigious heir of the Lambrinos heritage.  
“Dita Von Teese....” Mila laughed softly, tugging her finger around the elastic that held together a triangular bra that matched with an equally small red g-string.  
“That’s... for the scene when I hump Zayn,” Pixie smirked, running her fingers over the thin lace and brushing her own against Mila’s.  
“Oh so you do know what you’re wearing and when,” Mila teased, looking at the vast abundance of Herve Leger dresses and two pieces.  
“Maybe I did...” Pixie whispered taking the lingerie off the rack, “I’ll try this on, hm?”  
Mila nodded, shaking her head at Pixie as she disappeared into the walk-in. 

Pixie Elise Locke had brought her out to a big fancy house in Devonshire under false pretences of having to fix up a bunch of clothes that she knew nothing of! This kid was bad, it was nearly noon and Mila, if she were at home, would probably be enjoying a bit of Jeremy Kyle and eating the remainder of the takeout her and Z had gotten the night before! Yet there she was, being productive and trying to figure out how to increase the size of the bust whilst not causing any harm to the waist of some bespoke clothing. It was nothing she couldn’t handle, in the right caffeine addled state, but still, she wondered as she heard the door open, why did Pixie lie to her when Mila would’ve gone even if Pixie had said there’d be a murderer in the house? 

“Soph said something about adding extensions, curling my hair, a bit like Mariah from the mid 90s,” Pixie murmured standing in the doorframe.  
Mila forgot how to breathe. No matter how cliché that sounded, Mila – in that moment – forgot that she was supposed to breathe, forgot that breathing was a necessary function in order to keep living, and forgot every basic ingrained fact because of Pixie Elise Locke. It wasn’t because Pixie looked breathtaking, that had been a given thing she would have to prepare herself for when Pixie had gone to put on the extremely revealing lingerie. It was the way the pale midmorning sunlight, slanting in through the venetian blinds, washed in through the bay windows edging her in gold, from an angle Pixie was just a dim silhouette edged in golden sunlight.  
“So I was thinking that this works, right? Like that bloke Owen knows is gonna do a like body tint so I don’t look like Niall’s colour,” Pixie babbled, looking down at her body, “I mean I’m not Nicki Minaj but this is okay right?”  
“Yeah...” Mila nodded, gaining her vocals and ability to breathe back, finally, “Um come closer, it’s best to take your measurements like this.”  
Pixie nodded, walking closer and Mila saw them: pale purple and blue – scattered across her legs like constellations, tucked between her thighs like something left unsaid. Mila’s jaw tightened at the thought of Seth being intimate with Pixie. It almost made her sick to the stomach. She swung her duffle bag, which had been slung over her shoulder like an afterthought, off her shoulder and onto Pixie’s four poster bed. She reached in, taking out her notepad, scratchy pen and measuring tape.  
“Hold up your arms, please,” Mila said wrapping the reel of yellow measuring tape over the part of Pixie’s chest that was most protruding, “Bust 41”... And drop your arms,” She commanded softly, then did the same process but taking a step back, thumb still pressed to the small of Pixie’s back to hold down the tape, so to note down the measurements.  
“Arms up again,” Mila said, hearing Pixie inhale sharply, “Don’t breathe in, babe,” She tutted as she wrapped the tape around Pixie’s waist, “You have a like filled out hourglass figure, it’s like even, Pix, be happy with it.”  
“You work with models like Bryana,” Pixie rolled her eyes, “So um - shut up!”  
“Models aren’t just 5’10 skinny blonde chicks with big boobs and an American passport,” Mila told her as she retreated from measuring Pixie’s waist, hips and thigh width to note down the numbers.  
“Okay but they’re not 4’11 curvy blonde chicks with big boobs and a gross cellulite-y ass,” Pixie retorted as she lifted her arms to retie her hair with the sparkly hair tie on her wrist.  
Mila sighed, “Babe, you’re a good kid... good kid, nice little body too,” Her voice slowed to a murmur as she measure Pixie’s individual thighs.  
“Fuck off,” Pixie groaned, lifting her arms to cover her face with both hands, “You, Harry, Zayn, Orla... all got these wicked metabolisms and I’m just.... jiggly.”  
Pixie sighed. Mila prodded Pixie’s stomach then got on her knees, looking up at Pixie.  
“Hush,” Mila whispered.  
Mila had balls; in fact Mila had something even better: she had tits. She pressed quick kisses to Pixie’s thighs, over-pronouncing the ‘MWAH’ as the kisses travelled up the left of Pixie’s body which Pixie responded to by giggling and struggling in Mila’s lose grip.  
“Stop it! Stop it!” Pixie giggled, trying to push Mila off her but it was no use.  
“Say your body is nice!” Mila told her once she had pressed the final kiss to Pixie’s neck, backing her up onto the bed and towering over her before attacking Pixie with tickles all over her wriggling body.  
“Fine!” Pixie shrieked, trying to remove Mila’s hands from her stomach, “My body is nice!”  
“It is,” Mila smirked triumphantly stepping back and admiring how Pixie was still heaving breaths, “Very nicely proportioned, the dresses won’t take long... bit worried about your boobs popping out of that bra though so I’ll add to it. I think Zoom’s clothes are the real ones that need help, like Harry is a fucking massive specimen in comparison to tiny Tim.”  
Pixie spluttered laughter as she sat up, bouncing on her bed, “Call up Soph, Bry, H and Zaynie.”  
“Literally or like with whatsapp?” Mila asked.  
Pixie shrugged, jumping off the bed with the elegance and precision of a cat before stooping in front of the rack where boxes off jewellery and other assorted accessories were kept, “Either,” She took out a collection of gold necklaces and placed them on herself.  
Why was she like this? Mila practically groaned as she slipped out her phone to text the four of them. Pixie Elise Locke was just unfair to Mila. 

“My mother,” Pixie said softly, taking a pair of killer stilettos off the bottom of the rack.  
“What?” Mila asked, looking at Pixie as she fell on her bum onto her bed so she could shove her foot into the heels.  
“My mother is a sick twisted woman,” Pixie told Mila calmly, “She was having problems with my stepdad, I’m at this gala with Louis and everything’s going wonderful... I’ve got this dress and it’s worth my entire life, white with diamonds and I look like something out of a film.”  
Mila was quiet as Pixie sucked in her breath, laughing nervously.  
“I left Lou for like a minute, my mum wanted me so of course I would go to her,” Pixie whispered, trying to keep her voice steady, “She said to me that I have to break up with Louis because the Porter’s have a nice son around Nathan’s age and I’m making the family look shit.”  
“You didn’t....” Mila murmured.  
Pixie shook her head, not looking at Mila as she said, “It sounds so dumb to say it out loud? To say I broke up with someone I really loved because my mother told me to. I just... I feel so stupid?” Pixie’s voice was hollow, brittle and she sounded like her voice would break at any second.  
“How did he take it?” Mila dared to ask because she just had to know.  
“Quite well, he said he cared about me and hoped the best for me, kissed my forehead and left with El,” Pixie said smiling gently, brushing her forehead with her fingers as though she still felt his lips on her.  
“What does he look like?” Mila smiled, she couldn’t help it because no matter how hard she tried to despise this guy she couldn’t because he sounded so lovable like you didn’t have a choice but to fall in love with him, fall in love with Louis Tomlinson.  
“Give us your phone,” Pixie held out her hand with a happy grin.  
Pixie’s beige acrylic nails wrapped around Mila’s turquoise phone case, she clicked on the instagram app and tapped in the user name ‘louist91’. A range of pictures, mainly taken in poor quality and with a lack of lighting, filled up the screen underneath the screen name ‘Louis Tommo’ and the bio that read: ‘those who can’t do , teach . donnyyyy. Life is siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick !!!! big Love to my boy fred & my girl , @daniellcampbell1’ and a whole length of emojis scattered around the white box. She got a personality based off just his insta bio. It made Mila’s bio that read “The only Michael I need is Kors” feel awfully inadequate in comparison and made Zayn’s look like utter shit since he didn’t even have a bio. Pixie clicked on a picture, a selfie of a man with a messy fringe and murky blue eyes holding a King Charles spaniel close to his face, his arm, clad in an Adidas jacket, wrapped around aforementioned dog with the background drowned out by sunlight.  
“That’s Louis,” Pixie said calmly, she clicked off the picture and onto another picture.  
It was Louis with a neat quiff, black t-shirt tight on his biceps and she saw his sunkissed limbs, dark tattoos etched into his skin and his eyes were half shut so his long, elegant eyelashes rested on his cheekbones; his facial expression relaxed but still sharp in a way that made Mila feel like he was some sort of sculpture that should’ve been in the Ancient Greek section of the V&A. He was very pretty, that couldn’t be denied, and she could see how he would work well with Pixie just by aesthetics. They scrolled through his pictures as they waited for the others to turn up. He had a lot of drunk pictures where he had his arms draped over a ginger guy, a girl with bleached silver hair and a brunette girl who was pulled in close to him at all times. There were probably more pictures of him holding alcoholic beverages than there were of him with anything else.  
“That’s his younger sister, Lotts,” Pixie told her, “She’s Harry’s age and his other sister, Fizzy, is my age. He’s one of seven children...”  
“Damn,” Mila whistled, nodding slowly, “Don’t you have him on insta?”  
Pixie shook her head, “Um no... Seth said I should delete all my social media accounts before starting university and change all my emails so no one can trace me... and he wouldn’t like it if I did on my new one anyways.”  
“Right,” Mila nodded as she heard the door that lead to the landing click open. 

Harry and Zayn entered, bickering about something, followed by Bryana and Sophia who was wielding a pair of zebra print tweezers as she tried to fix Zayn’s eyebrows as he snapped at Harry. Zayn was already wearing a black blazer that was drooping over his wrists to an extent that Mila couldn’t even see the tips of his neatly cut nails. Zayn was always neatly kept, he went to get his brows done with Mila every other week and Mila was always having a shout at him whenever he trimmed his beard but with the oncoming midterms he was spending more times cursing at spray cans than he was spending £2.50 on a quick threading which was probably the reason why Sophia was trying to sort the monsters out sooner rather than later.  
“What’s up, children?” Mila drawled, tearing her eyes from the picture of Louis holding a newborn baby against his bare chest in black and white.  
“Smithers wants me wear makeup,” Zayn grumbled.  
Mila deadpanned, “Zayn, you wear makeup sometimes... you literally model! You modelled for the university!”  
Zayn groaned, “No, M! I do but not Harry’s!”  
“Why does he not get your brand?” Pixie leant forward, smiling at him.  
“Shut it you!” Zayn snapped, rolling his eyes, “No, have you seen him?”  
“What’s wrong with me?” Harry gasped.  
“I can’t wear your makeup, H!” Zayn batted Sophia away, storming over to the girls to wedge himself between Pixie and Mila.  
“It’s YSL, Zaynie,” Sophia pleaded with him, kneeling in front of him with a drooping lip.  
“It’s also porcelain,” Zayn narrowed his eyes at Sophia from where he was trying to hide behind Mila’s shoulder.  
“I have some of my crappy L’Oreal CC cream, how’s that Zoom?” Mila laughed airily, grabbing Zayn’s shoulder and pressing a kiss to Zayn’s forehead, “and I’ve got some NYX green tea things so you won’t need much.”  
“Well H you get some free shit,” Pixie smiled at Harry who was inspecting the pictures on the dresser.  
Harry smiled back at he picked up a picture of him in a posh looking school uniform next to Pixie in an equally posh looking one.  
“Sixth form?” Zayn laughed, noting Harry’s hair that swept to his shoulders and Pixie’s lack of braces in her smile that was wider than the Pacific Ocean.  
Harry nodded, putting it back down and turning to the others, “Let’s get cracking then, shall we?”  
Mila stretched out the measuring tape until it made a whip like sound through the tension of the air, “Let’s do this!”  
She looked down at Zayn who was just staring at her with his massive Bambi brown eyes until she pressed another kiss to Zayn’s forehead and he smiled contently.  
“Can you ladies stop trying to steal my man?” Harry smirked at them, dimple popping and eyebrow twitching.  
“But he’s mine!” Mila complained, dragging herself even closer to Zayn who acted like a furnace in the old house.  
Zayn nodded lazily, lips ripping apart so he could yawn languidly. 

It was going to be a long day. 

The first day on set had been mainly set up. Mila went around altering clothes and having banter back and forth with Pixie or Zayn or anyone who was around – even Orla got involved in the cause.  
Tom tested different make up looks on Pixie whilst just negotiating with Zayn on what his skin could take. Sophia had been sorting Pixie’s hair out so putting in extensions wouldn’t be what took up most of the production days. Landon and Orla had been bumping hips and looking into the camera, sharing smiles and even offering to do things together like go down to the local chippy – local being an hour’s drive to Bude – to get everyone a portion. Pixie had been teasing Orla about the whole thing whenever Landon seemed preoccupied with looking at the pictures Bryana had taken throughout the day. Zayn and Pixie had done a little shoot once Mila had done the clothing, for some of Harry’s shirts which were so delicate she just had to clamp them down in the back with pins, and Pixie had planted kisses, laced with a light touch of Baileys and coffee, to Mila’s cheeks as a way of thanks as moonlight tickled the last remaining traces of golden liquid liner on Pixie’s closed eyes before murmuring something about how she should bunk with her in her room. 


	8. CHapter 7

The next day wasn’t looking up to be any less tiresome. Mila didn’t have any more clothes to alter; she was only there now to offer advice because Pixie seemed to dote on her every word like a new puppy would to their owner. It was endearing but kind of overwhelming. Pixie’s first piece of assessed work was held in her hands and Orla kept shooting them frequent reassuring smiles. Why was Anusface (Mila had last referred to that c. Two Weeks Ago) being so nice? It was unnerving, Mila decided as she took a sip of orange juice – one that she had to buy at stupid o’clock in the morning from the Village co-op after discovering that Mr Lambrinos didn’t have anything in his kitchen besides alcohol – giving Orla a subtle nod as they held their thumbs up at her. Pixie was still running around trying to find props with Harry, Niall and Liam’s help – since they were the only ones who had been there before bar Orla and Calum. For most of the squad it was like a holiday, a working holiday with a lack of nourishment and a lot of takeout but a holiday nonetheless.

“Mila!” Pixie shouted from the balcony that overlooked the massive ass backyard, fingers holding onto the ivy that touched the banisters and trickled down over the patio where Mila was sat with Harry and Nick.

“Yeah?” Mila called up, placing the glass of orange juice on a bamboo table that looked totally out of place with the other modern furnishings.

“Can you come with me to get the last prop?” Pixie asked, smiling hopefully at Mila.

Mila peeled herself off the lounge chair, tugging down her charcoal denim skirt that was thick and tight on her thighs so that the boy wouldn’t get an eyeful, “Alright, is it out the back or?”  
“Yep! I’ll meet you down there!” Pixie beamed.

Nick said something Harry that Mila missed but had caused him to start laughing stupidly. He stopped abruptly when Mila turned around to give him a dangerous glare.

“What?” She snapped, folding her arms against her burgundy t-shirt.

“Nothing, nothing,” Harry was a shit liar.

“I hate you two,” She sneered but her facial expression was every element of playful.

“Was just saying if Zayn and Pixie were here then the five of us would finally form the gay squad of teenage me’s dreams,” Nick said casually, shrugging a bit at the end with one non committal shoulder.

Mila scoffed, “Okay cool but Pixie’s not gay,” She held Nick’s gaze for a moment waiting for a quirk in his facial expression to prove he was lying to her, “Pixie’s gay?” She gawked, eyes bugging.

“Yeah, it was the first thing she said to me,” Nick laughed in memory, “Har was drunk as a fucking skunk when we met at Pixie’s 17th in London, he says to her: This is Nick! He likes boys! And she says to me: I’m Pixie! I like boys and girls too!”   
“Did we just out her?” Harry said a nervous edge to his voice.

“She is out, numpty,” Nick rolls his eyes, shoving an anxious looking Harry with the tips of his fingers but exerting enough power to jolt the boy.

Again, Mila scoffed, “What’s it matter anyways?”  
“Nothing...nothing,” Harry murmured, fiddling with the hair on his left brow.

Did Mila mention Harry was a shit liar?

 

“Hey!” Pixie grinned, running out to the patio her floral Nike sneakers smacking the tiles, as her hair, fit with all the blonde extensions from last night, flying behind her in a shit ponytail.

Pixie liked girls too.

“Hey,” Mila breathed out heavily, touching her hair self consciously.

“Hey,” Harry said, tilting his neck back to look at Pixie with his signature big smile and Mariana trench deep dimples.

“Hey,” Nick added for good measure.

Pixie gave the three of them a strange look before shrugging it off, turning to Mila, “So it’s a few miles out close to the pool, hope you’ve got good walking shoes!”  
Mila looked down at her borrowed YSL boots with tassels that Harry had given her, they were far too big but looked good so she didn’t mind much, “Nah I doubt Harold will mind me fucking up his shoes.”  
She walked away with Pixie as she caught Harry flipping her off in the corner of her eye, causing her to smirk at his feeble attempt of retaliation.

 

Throughout the walk down, through the bushes and brambles and overgrown hedges, Pixie kept quietly singing songs because they had both lost connection and could no longer get either of their spotify accounts. She jokingly asked Mila if she had any requests as she helped Mila jump over a fence. Mila had been taken aback but managed to mumble out a response: that song Harry keeps singing by that Brendon guy. Victorious by Panic! At the Disco, Pixie had informed her. It wasn’t Mila’s usual style but watching Pixie be so at ease in an environment that someone wearing two three thousand pound Cartier love bracelets and a Valentino bustier with matching shorts shouldn’t be. Pixie sang out the lyrics as she wedged her foot between two metal bars that made up a gate which fenced off the outside walking community from the world of Anders Lambrinos.

“Until we feel alright, until we feel alrighi-i-i-i-it,” Her voice reached heights that Mila had assumed it couldn’t, apparently the vocal coaching from Bath was working.

“Wow,” Mila breathed slowly.

Pixie turned to her, a blush rising in her cheeks as she pressed a key code, learnt to such an extent she didn’t even have to face the numbers she was punching in. Fuck, Mila remembered at that moment that Pixie liked girls. Pixie liked girls too. What sort of fucking universe would do this to Mila? Here was a girl, perfect for her in every way and actually seemed to reciprocate the appreciation to an extent, but she had a boyfriend - a piece of shit boyfriend who was never there when it mattered and only wanted to spend time with Pixie alone. Pixie was still singing Victorious as Mila followed her down to the little wooden shed at the other side of the square Olympic sized pool.

“What’s the prop then?” Mila asked once inside the shed which was perhaps the most ordinary aspect of the whole estate.

“One of my dad’s rifles,” Pixie said, switching on the light inside and stepping in.

“Oh,” Mila nodded, leaning against the wooden walls as Pixie rummaged through the organised setting.

Pixie laughed gently as she picked hunting rifle which looked far too showy with the white gold etched into the wooden barrel to pass for a hunting trip, “My dad’s a twin, you see, and his sister Aleta does hunting as a sport but like not for fun... she also does preservation in Tanzania, it’s about the ecosystem.... I think? I told Daddy I never agreed with it but Aleta still taught me how to shoot. Rifle, handgun and with a bow... according to Orla it’s a rich people thing?”  
Mila nodded, touching her fingers to her mouth, “So that’s what the bow and arrows were for... and the red apples you made me and Nialler pick up, hm...”  
“Yeah,” Pixie laughed, all twinkly and glittery and oh fuck.

 

Mila should never have gone on this trip. If she had never gone then she wouldn’t be facing her current dilemma of the fact she could very much have a relationship with a girl she had spent the past few months thinking that she had no chance with. Then again, even that was presumptuous. Maybe Pixie only liked her as a friend in the same way Nick and Harry only liked each other as friends. Mila knew she should know better than to assume any girl who also likes girls will like her back even if Pixie did always somehow find an excuse to be close to Mila. But then again, Pixie was close with everyone. She wasn’t sure what to think or how to think it any more.

“Mila...” Pixie’s voice broke her train of thought – or as she liked to call it: The Anxiety Express.

“Yeah?” She murmured, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she looked around shelves of the shed.

“What’s up?” She tilted her head as she took a step closer to Mila and away from the less extravagant looking rifles that were lined up against the back wall of the shed.

“Oh nothing’s up,” Mila smiled casually as she following Pixie out of the shed. 

Like Harry, Mila was a shit liar.

 

Once they had made their way back to house, gun in tow after Pixie had thoroughly checked that it was safe, Mila decided to completely destroy every single emotion she had for Pixie Elise Locke in a romantic or sexual way. Pixie was now sat back on the chair in the conservatory getting the finishing touches to her hair and makeup whilst the others sorted out the lighting and camera set up in the rooms that were being used. Mila was sat with Zayn and Pixie, throwing in the odd mean comment in Zayn’s direction whenever it seemed fitting because they always made Pixie laugh and she liked it when Pixie laughed. So maybe she wasn’t completely devoid of any feelings for Pixie but she tried to fend them off with reminders that sometimes girls, especially those who surrounded themselves with the type of people Pixie did, went through a sort of period of experimenting. Maybe when she had told Grimmy that she liked girls she had been doing just that. Yes, Mila told herself as she scrolled through her twitter account, that must have been it because Pixie had a boyfriend now, she sang about missing ‘him’ and she only ever spoke of one ex – a boy – who she frequently spoke of. Pixie had even hinted, on more than seventy million and twelve occasions, that she found Zayn attractive. Then again, that was surely human nature. Mila rolled her eyes as she watched Bryana take a picture of Zayn, he was pouting in this way that would be considered just a resting face if not for the fact that it was the very same face he pulled in half his selfies. She rolled her eyes so much around him that she was sure one day that they would either roll straight of their sockets or do a 360.

“Still getting extensions put in?” Mila asked as she wandered over to Pixie, still looking down at her phone.

“Nope,” She smiled gently, but not too much since Tom was still working on her contour, “Just curling now, going for that signature Gigi Hadid style, you know?”  
“Gigi, seriously?” Mila wrinkled her nose as Pixie laughed with a still face – it was kind of creepy but Mila enjoyed the sentiment.

“She’s hot, you shit homosexual!” Zayn shouted from next to her.

She turned immediately, smacking him on the forehead with her hand – rings and all.

“I’m not a shit homosexual; you don’t think Douglas Booth is hot so you’re the shit homosexual,” Mila countered, folding her arms and turning back to Pixie.

“You don’t think Dougie’s hot?!” Pixie gasped, “He’s literally the most gorgeous gentleman ever!”   
“Isn’t he just,” Sophia sighed as she ran a brush through Pixie’s hair.

“Okay but Gigi,” Zayn tried to argue.

“But she can’t walk in a straight line,” Mila tutted.

Whilst Mila hated the way that the children of the rich and famous were just getting a ticket straight to the catwalk without even having basic abilities like being able to walk in a straight line she had to admit that seeing Pixie with Gigi’s signature boho  waves with a slight bend would look fucking mouth watering on Pixie. Especially with the makeup they were going for, very Marc Jacobs cat walk inspired but with matte red lips that bested even what Taylor Swift had to offer. Zayn wasn’t getting as much of a star treatment just making sure he didn’t look dead in the eyes with the bags he always seemed to be sporting as of late and a cleanup of his beard. Sophia had sorted out the pink quiff by giving him a dye job with a can of black hair dye that would come out in the wash to leave him with the pink in a few days, when she was done with Pixie she said she would be styling his hair into a neat Clark Kent hairstyle. He was going to look so good and Mila felt like screaming. Pixie was too but Mila had learnt that any shoot, whether stationary or moving image, was like a fucking excavation project for women and a walk in the park for guys. They were starting with the gun/bow and arrow scene down in the shooting range under the house. Pixie was already in her outfit, a Herve Leger dress that made her hourglass figure look 300 times more stunning than usual. It was a bandage dress, shimmering gold foil with a v-neck from the crisscross detail at the bodice. Every piece of clothing for the shoot was Leger’s and Mila felt like she should change her style focus from Versace to Leger. The look was really coming together and Mila was just standing by to flick flecks off finishing powder from Zayn’s white shirt whilst also trying to make it look as dishevelled as possible. Tom was great, he did stage makeup so the extravagance and the melodrama Pixie was looking for throughout the shoot was set out from the extreme eyeliner that reminded Mila of AW15 with the graphic eyeliner to the two pairs of false lashes she was wearing. Mila knew that Pixie was only wearing this much makeup for the cameras but it was still a change she wasn’t used to. She wasn’t used to seeing Pixie look so, well, grown up.  It was kind of intimidating.

“Right,” Sophia said once she had finished fixing Zayn’s hair, “I think you two are camera ready.”  


They got down to the shooting range, lights all set up as well as camera and a light ring around the main camera that Landon was manning. Orla was mid ordering Harry about to turn the floor heaters on when he lost all focus on them to stare at Zayn. Mila couldn’t blame him. Harry seemed to do that a lot, look at Zayn like he just couldn’t believe he was dating him. To be fair, Zayn did that too. But he was always more discreet, like little looks when they were cuddling and Harry’s lashes were touching his high rising cheeks.  Zayn was subtle but so obvious at the same time.

“You two look amazing!” Orla clapped gleefully as they turned to see what Harry was gawping at, “You look nice too Mila.”  
“Thanks, Soph did my brows,” She smiled as she moved to stand near to Sage and Owen by one of the lights.

Orla chuckled before going into full directorial role, “Liam, babe, turn on the music at 1 minute? Calum turn your light on, everyone camera’s running when I say go and Bryana take pictures when you can.” They ordered, nodding to other people to reposition their lights and turn them on, “Zayn and Pixie come with me! Oh Har and Niall come with!”

Zayn was fastened to one of the targets which had a few bullet holes around the silhouette, he was held in place with a few runs of rope and it all looked particularly sinister until Pixie pressed a wet kiss to his cheek, half of the lipstick stain ending up on his facial hair with the rest just under his eye.

“Perfect,” Orla said laughing as Zayn screwed up his face and Sophia rushed to reapply a coat of lipstick for Pixie.

Orla walked Pixie through the routine. She was to strut down the down the aisle towards the target, holding the gun with one hand and lipsyncing. It was all very simple, just walking singing and looking badass. Pixie had theatre training so nothing like that would be much of a strain on her talent. Neither would shooting an arrow, apparently. She was to shoot the arrow into an apple between Zayn’s teeth. Naturally he was terrified but Pixie assured him that she had won many awards for her archery skills so he had nothing to worry about. After three takes of that shot, the arrowhead never even coming close to Zayn’s flesh. Pixie was so fucking talented. Aside from that there was the song ‘[Kill a Man](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tNYgL0CLbk)’ with the chorus taken from Cypress Hill’s ‘How I Could Just Kill a Man’ which had surprised Mila when she had realised that Pixie had been inspired by a classic like that.

_You’re a mess around, you don’t give me time_

_You just shoot me down, you done crossed the line_

_You’re a heartless fool, you don’t take no blame_

_You won’t never change, I’ma cock and aim_

 

The lyrics blasted from her iphone that Liam was controlling but Pixie sang along with them instead of lipsyncing, it didn’t matter because in post production Landon would just take out the audio that the cameras picked up during the 18 seconds.

 

The shooting was over quickly and that meant everyone had to set up shop somewhere else. Next on the shooting list was one of the opening strands, Pixie doing her makeup and singing into the mirror of one of the bedrooms. It was just an outfit change whilst Zayn was being strapped to a chair and roughed up for one of the later shots. It would be an easy shoot, just filming Pixie going through what looked like an everyday routine whilst not getting any of the cameras in the reflective surface of the ostentatious mirror.

“Who’s room is this?” Mila found herself asking Orla as they helped Sage set up the vanity set to make it look like Pixie’s with the theme of red, black and gold whilst also making sure no labels were visible for when the filming was to start.

“Anders’ girlfriend’s,” Orla replied, “Daphne Birch.”

“Why doesn’t she sleep with him?” Mila wished she hadn’t asked when Orla gave her an odd expression.

“It’s their um... sexy times room,” Orla blanched whilst Sage made a little vomiting sound for added effect.

“Amazing,” Mila nodded with a similar expression to Sage’s.

Upon being filmed, Pixie came to life, bouncing around in one of Harry’s shirts as she sang her lyrics and took chances to pout out her feelings when she fluffed her hair.

_Oh, you’re a worthless man._

_You don’t call me back, you don’t give a damn – you’re a maniac!  
You’re a jealous guy, you’re a hypocrite _

_Got a wandering eye, don’t want none of it!_

_You gon’ have to go. pack you’re shit and leave,_

_I’m taking control, crossing all my T’s_

_I’m done!  
But you keep me on the line, keep messing with my mind, yeah_

_What you doing to me baby_

 

The shots weren’t finite, was the thing. Landon was going to end up deciding which shots from the makeup scene and the initial opening scene with Zayn and Pixie, that he said was an establishment of their relationship, would fit with the lyrics and syntax. He went into this depth of film student drivel every few minutes and whilst most people like Mila, and even ones like Sage and Owen who at least 50% got him, would just zone out Orla would just stay staring at him like he was explaining something they would later need to use for an essay. Pixie had taken the initiative to go off the mock ups Zayn had drawn as to draw a T on the mirror which perhaps wasn’t the best idea seeing as this was her dad’s sex room. She looked like she genuinely would kill a man, with these flirtatious winks and looks to the camera when Orla ordered her to do so – at least kill a Mila. She was all elements of sexy and it was terrifying when Mila knew this was the girl who had once called her at 4am to tell her to check out this instagram account that posted funny cat videos and had spent a full two hours giggling to her about the cat who was saying ‘No’ repeatedly.

 

Then came the scene Mila had been dreading: the one where Pixie had to grind on Zayn for half an hour. She had made a fleeting comment at Pixie about Tom would have to probably spend half an hour making sure there was enough cover up on the bruises on her thighs which was just a joke but Pixie frowned and had stopped trying to converse with her after that. It had been weird, as though Pixie hadn’t turned up with hickeys before: she always seemed to have bruises from Seth. She had pursed her lips, looking down to her phone and replying to emails from fashion houses asking her for endorsement with her usual answer of ‘ask my publicist’, as Sophia curled her hair with the very essence of Carrie Bradshaw. It was a lot like her natural hair, but with far tighter curls and more bouffant. On anyone else they may have looked foolish but for Pixie Elise Locke she just looked flat out perfect. When looking at her, Pixie running her fingers over Zayn as he struggled in an attempt to get free of the ropes tying him to the chair, Mila felt as straight as Pixie’s hair. Her ass was bouncing everywhere in the lack of fabric covering her flesh. Mila was lowkey considering sending Dita Von Teese an email of condolence. The whole shoot was very Dita, if Mila was honest. The song too. Very burlesque. It was torture watching Pixie rub herself on Zayn, tilting her head so her curls tipped over one shoulder as she pouted at Zayn in this taunting way. She gripped his cheeks, his chin touching the palm of her hand as she sung into his face.

 

_You gon’ have to go. pack you’re shit and leave,_

_I’m taking control, crossing all my T’s_

_I’m done!  
But you keep me on the line, keep messing with my mind, yeah_

_What you doing to me baby_

 

_Here is something you can’t understand_

_(How I can just kill a man)_

_You do me wrong my heart in your hands_

_(Now I can just kill a man)  
This never a part of my plan_

_(How I can just kill a man)  
You don’t want me for yourself, but don’t let me have no one else. _

Pixie kept up the sexy for the abridging scene where she had to stand over Zayn who was to appear lifeless on the floor, flicking her hand and being overdramatic in six inch heels and a black Leger tube dress and cameras swooping around her to get the perfect angle as she sung out the bridge. Watching them shoot it looked like organised chaos, Pixie with her brushed out curls in a messy up-do like Kate Moss had worn hers for Vogue Paris’ 90th anniversary. She wondered how Pixie was feeling as she was swinging her body down so that she could sit on Zayn’s crotch but continue to lean back till her head touched his calves. She looked so effortless, like using Zayn as a prop was the easiest thing for her. He made it easy though, Zayn was used to the camera and acting for it. He knew he looked good, with his dreary expressions and dead eyes that Tom had given up getting rid of. They did look like the perfect couple to the point at which Mila felt like one of the commenter’s on Max and El’s instagram. Zayn looked powerful, even with Pixie climbing over him or biting at his jaw during the bridge.

 

_Ladies (Uh-hu)_

_Is he giving you what you're looking for? (Hell, no)_

_Ladies (Uh-hu)_

_Is he blowing through the final straw? (Hell, no)_

_Ladies (Uh-hu)_

_Don't it feel like you can't take no more? (Hell, yeah)_

_Maybe (Uh-hu)'bout time we go to war._

 

And Pixie, well, she just secreted power like it was what she exhaled instead of carbon dioxide. They demonstrated this battle for power in the opening scene where they had an argument, Zayn looking bored and checking his phone whilst Pixie sung the first verse at him. Pixie was just a great little actress, just made for the stage. She wasn’t subtle in her aggression nor was she subtle in the wry smiles and the exaggerated sways of her hips. Pixie was a masterpiece, perfect for music videos like this and so much more. Mila wanted to get on her knees and just worship the ground Pixie’s four inch heels touched. Pixie, on the other hand, had been ignoring Mila since she had made the comment about her thighs. It was slightly upsetting but she knew Pixie had to concentrate on shooting her music video, doing things like dragging Zayn by his arm, his body like a ragdoll, down a flight of stairs.

 

By the end of the shoot, darkness had already set in and the cold licked at every exposed area of skin as the group of them gathered around an old barbeque Niall and Liam had been rescuing during their time out of the shoot. It wasn’t the right time of year for a barbeque, with frost threatening to coat their cars that were parked in the driveway and their breath visible whenever they breathed out a little heavier than usual but it was, however, the right time for friends to be huddled up Anders Lambrinos’ patio sharing a couple bottles of wine that they probably shouldn’t have been opened and wrapped under Egyptian cotton blankets. Nick had opted out of the wine, sharing a can of Bulmer’s with Orla and Mila as Liam handed out slightly charred burgers without fear of poisoning his friends. Everyone was taking selfies or pap shots of each other so they could get blackmail worthy mugshots for later usage. Zayn had recently put his first selfies of himself and Harry on his main instagram ‘niazkilam’ because apparently none of the selfies they had taken prior had the right amount of exposure to be black and white worthy. Harry, being Harry, had a mainly beige theme on his instagram, ‘hstyles96’ , which truly did benefit his aim to be the most extra boyfriend ever as well as allowing him to post 5689 billion pictures of his different brown Chelsea boots. Mila caught Zayn with his lips scrunched together in a cross between a kissy face and a pout and his eyes closed as Harry did a similar pout, showing off his contoured and highlighted cheeks, angled his face to Zayn’s whilst Pixie took the picture. Mila shook her head but immediately turned her head when she noticed Nick pull out his phone and swipe the camera to be front facing. She’d had an argument with Zayn a few weeks back about how his entire instagram was his face and if he was just trying to contribute to Harry’s wank bank that there was this great invention called private messaging. He had responded to that  by informing her that she had enough selfies on instagram that there was not an angle or crevice of her face that NASA wouldn’t be able to reconstruct with ease and that she didn’t even have a girlfriend to be contributing her wank bank. Mila had shoved him but they both promised to make their instagrams less self centred. The two of them met eyes across the dark, Pixie showing Harry the pictures she had taken of them but they both knew what they had to do. Not just for the benefit of not seeming like vain pricks but also for the squad. They would be the fairy squad parents. They made Bryana get out her best camera and stand so they could immortalise this moment. The timer went off; flash going three times as the pictures were taken and Mila dragged the corners of her lips to make the biggest and most ugliest grin she could manage. The pictures were cute and Zayn couldn’t even complain that they wouldn’t be perfect to make black and white.

“Mila and Pixie!” Orla shouted standing up and brushing crumbs off themself as the two of them looked up at them.

“What’s up, Perriwinkle?” Mila twisted her body around to look at them.

“We have barely any pictures of you two,” Orla said it as though the world would be ending, and putting their hands on their hips.

Pixie and Mila glanced at each other and reluctantly went over to lounge chair that Orla had just gotten off of. They slid next to each other, Mila automatically wrapping her arms over Pixie’s shoulders and Pixie stopped being so stiff, Mila felt her soften against her body. The two of them were cuddled up and smiling at each other.

“Sorry,” Mila murmured as her nose bumped Pixie’s.

“What for?” Pixie asked as she got even closer to Mila.

“I don’t know,” Mila confessed, laughing exasperated, “I just feel I did something dumb.”   
“Well, apology accepted,” Pixie whispered, “Now keep smiling because Orla is worse than airport paps.”

Eventually Orla was done taking pictures of them but Pixie and Mila didn’t even bother separate. They just stayed together, holding onto each other and letting the salt of the sea lull against the coast, hearing them crash then retreat into the backwash. Mila could smell the salt on Pixie’s hair mixed in with the usual scent of strawberries and she just wanted them to stay like that. They didn’t even have to talk to be comfortable with each other; just breathing each other in was enough. Pixie’s warmth on Mila and Mila covering Pixie, they could be enough. Maybe we could be enough, Mila wondered as the last tendrils of Pixie’s extensions touched her chin. Niall had gotten out one of the many guitars from Anders’ music room on the second floor and was playing a couple songs as he sung with Harry, Pixie or Zayn chiming in every so often to meet their notes. Mila had gone from having hardly any friends to having an entire fucking cohort. She had once hated the co-dependent but now she couldn’t imagine life without seeing these same people every hour of every day. But most of all, she couldn’t imagine not seeing Pixie all the time. Pixie who she felt vibrating next to her as she sung the words to Ignition whilst Niall strummed away to his heart’s content.

“ _It’s the remix to ignition, hot and fresh out the kitchen... Mama rolling that body got every in here wishing_ ,” Pixie sung, Harry and Zayn did too, all of their voices working together as though they had practised, “ _sipping on coke and rum, I’m like so what I’m drunk..._ ”  
“ _It’s the freaking weekend baby, I’m about to have me some fun!_ ” Everyone shouted in unison, no matter how acoustic things got they would always remain out of tune and sync whenever the lot of them joined in but still revelling in the oodles of fun they were all having.

Pixie was practically grinding against Mila, she knew better than to think anything of it since the music made Mila want to do so too. She was so enthusiastic, smiling like mad and didn’t seem to mind a bit when Mila whipped out her phone to film her singing the second verse.

 

“Pixie!” A guy called out, voice all gruff and posh and the sort of person Mila tended to avoid if she could help it.

It hit her in the back of the throat when she saw him walk out of the conservatory and onto the patio, agile as a fucking cat and just as aloof, that he was definitely someone she wanted to avoid.

“Seth!” Pixie immediately pulled away from Mila, Niall immediately stopped playing the intro to the Thong Song and Harry immediately looked murderous.

“Charlotta and I met at a gala and she told me you were out here for a music video?” His tone was scathing and he looked slightly more murderous than Harry.

“Um...,” Pixie gulped, struggling to push Mila off herself and stand.

“I think we need to have a conversation, don’t you, Pixie?” He glowered at her, fiddling with his cufflinks.

Silently Pixie nodded as she completely removed herself from Mila and scampered towards her boyfriend.

“Oh calm down, Seth,” Harry shouted, narrowing his eyes.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Pixie said to no one in particular as she took Seth’s hand, the vein on his neck pounding and tried to lead him away from what would definitely end in an argument.

“What was that, Harold?” Seth snarled, trying to turn from where Pixie was leading him.

When most people called Harry that it was endearing, a way of teasing him but when Seth did it was condescending as though reminding him he had more power.

“Calm down,” Harry said through gritted teeth.

“Why don’t you fuck off, eh?” Seth snapped.

“What the fuck, bro?” Zayn jerked upright, his brow creasing as he looked accusingly at Seth.

Oh shit.

“Sort your _boyfriend_ out,” Seth told him, shaking his head at them, the way he said ‘boyfriend’ was the same way Draco Malfoy said ‘mudbloods’ and Mila felt sick to her stomach just looked at that tool.  
Zayn leant forward as if to go and smack him, or worse, but Mila was quicker, grabbing his arm and pushing him back down next to Harry.

“Course mate,” Zayn growled in the most passive way possible, “of course.”

Mila watched as Pixie walked through the conservatory, looking helpless as Niall played a little tune on his guitar to give himself a distraction. She looked so small and like there was nothing else she could do but do as Seth said.

 

How I could just kill a man, Mila thought as Niall tried to lift the mood by badly rapping You Need Me, I Don’t Need You. She couldn’t sleep with Pixie that night since, well, Seth was there so Niall said Mila could bunk with him. They had gone up to Pixie’s bedroom, everyone else already taking up the bedrooms that hadn’t been renovated, but when Mila had wrapped her hand around the crystal door knob she couldn’t turn it upon hearing Pixie’s whimpers and rhythmic thumping. She turned to Niall, grimacing as the thumping continued mixed with Pixie’s dragged out pleas.

“I’m sure I’ve got a t-shirt you can borrow,” He told her resoundingly, bumping her shoulder and leading her away from Pixie’s room.

“Mm...” She managed; the lack of ability to form a coherent sentence was louder and more pressing than the fact she just had to accept that this was how it would be.

Pixie could be as close as she liked with Mila and have as much fun with her friends but at the end of the day she had to be Seth’s because her mother had bargained her off to him, her mother had taken Pixie from the happiness she had with Louis and dropped her, face first, into a relationship that Pixie expected to end in a marriage because that’s what people expected of her. She wasn’t Pixie when she was with Seth. She was this docile, do what he says girl and Pixie wasn’t like that. Pixie was fierce, flirty, funny and Pixie thought Mila was fucking amazing – Orla had said so. Pixie wasn’t a simple person and Mila kind of loved how complicated she was because Pixie always seemed to open up to her. But right now, Seth was taking all that away from her, all that away from them - even if Pixie never considered them like that. Niall was great though. He just stroked Mila’s hair and shushed her as she cried into his shoulder under the sound of Seth fucking Pixie into her mattress. Her mattress that probably still smelled slightly of Mila’s LYNX body spray and the few droplets of coffee she had spilled in the morning when Pixie had shoved her during her dramatic performance of Salute by Little Mix.

 

Great.


	9. Chapter 8

**_Peaches *peach emoji and stars emoji*_ **

_Hey fashion student!!!!! So I have a teeny bit of a need for you rn babe!!! I’ve gto a performance & i need help choosing an outfit!!! __J_ _J_ _J_ _I prmise I’ll bring oyu  pizza and cake!!!! Just finishing @ the cafe ((((Zosia letting me bring the red velvet home!!!!!! said its 2 good 4 customers ;)))))))) & if u cant make it just txt me!!!! Love love LOVEEE YOUUUU!!!! P. X_

Mila smiled down at her phone, losing time as she poorly tapped out a reply under the desk with her left hand whilst she continued to sketch out her latest design with her right fingers wrapped around a graphite pencil.

 

TO: **_Peaches *peach emoji and stars emoji*_**

_Hey babes! I’ve got to finish off some sketches for my projj but you can meet me at the Circus or yours????_

 

She sent the text to Pixie, nodding her head to the music that she had reluctantly agreed on with Max. It was the middle of the week so not many people had shown up to finish their final sketches before they got onto making, the studio was pretty empty aside from Max and Eleanor who were dancing around to make milky cups of tea whilst they obnoxiously sung along to Gasoline as they too tapped their pencils against their desks. She looked down at her phone, watching the little dots that indicated that Pixie was typing, only lifting her head up to give Max a grateful smile as he placed a mug of tea in front of her on top of a coaster. Their teacher, Oritsè, was quite the neat freak, if Mila did say so herself.

 

**_Peaches *peach emoji and stars emoji*_ **

_I’ll come see you!!! Want me to bring you a mocha??? Or a muffin??? I made them fresh today!!!! What are you doing anyways??? I’ll bring an ipad so maybe we could stay at the circle??? Does your prof mind outsiders???? Do I have to sacrifice my  Sacai dress for him to accept me into the fashion cult?????? *laughing emojis* Just kidding!!! LOVE YOUUUU!!!! See you in a bit, bbz!! P. X_

Mila snickered to herself, shaking her head as she marvelled at Pixie’s novel-length text messages that simply denied any form of acceptable grammar usage and was an explosion of unnecessary punctuation with proper words slowly dwindling out towards the end of the message, always replaced with text talk in comparison to the full words in the beginning. She typed the same way she spoke, the same enthusiasm that was almost childish but Mila loved it because full of life, well that was just who Pixie was. She heard Eleanor’s voice behind her as her thumb hovered over the laughing face emoji to send a few back to Pixie and it jolted her back to reality, back to real time where she wasn’t only supposed to be Pixie’s friend.

“Huh?” Mila asked, twisting her body around on the stool to look across to her.

“Do you know where the watercolours are?” Eleanor smiled down at her teasingly, the bobby pins barely restraining her hair as it was scraped atop her head into an up-do with more things holding it together than the government.

“Oh Ming left them in the cupboard,” Mila answered, narrowing her eyes at Eleanor’s far too happy face.

“Oh thanks!” Eleanor twirled around, the silky pyjama striped wide-length pants she wore billowing around her thin legs as she strode away.

 

TO: **_Peaches *peach emoji and stars emoji*_**

_Hmmm yeah a mocha would be nice ;) and maybz if they’re triple choc, feeling indeed of a choccy overdose!! Bring the ipad sure! And no bb you don’t have to!! Seeyaa!_

She reached for a pen to scratch away some notes on fabric choices and tucked back behind her ear when she was done.

“Who you texting?” Eleanor shouted as she walked past, flicking water at her from the wet paintbrushes.

“Pixie,” She told her, begrudgingly wiping the water from her cheek.

“Ooh is she coming over?” Max called from the other side of the room, shaking his hips to Control.

Mila nodded as she stared at the three grey dots on her screen.

“You know what Ori says,” Eleanor told her tauntingly as she returned back to her station, “No phones when we’re designing!”  
“Ori isn’t here though, is he?” Mila snapped.  

Eleanor mimicked her as she received a new message from Pixie.

 

**_Peaches *peach emoji and stars emoji*_ **

_I’ll pick you up a cadbury’s bar too then!!! Leaving now!!! C u soooooon!!! Luuuuuv yaaaaa!!!! P. X_

Mila smiled down at her phone, turning it onto flight mode so she could focus on her work. No matter how lovely Pixie was she wasn’t going to distract her from the final project. It was for her made up brand; the concepts for H.S.S.N were inspired by traditional Pakistani dress along with lots of floral and metallic. She was drawing a jacket with a jacquard effect and big daisies embossed into the beige polycotton with gold thread, it had a very box-like shoulder style but the rest of the design was very similar to a Sherwani, kind of like the one her brother had worn to his wedding. A lot of her clothes were about defying gender norms, taking the type of dress meant, traditionally, for men but making it more suited for women or just genderless. She loved designing nearly as much as she loved making clothes. Making was just, so much fun. It was so satisfying watching something you had only known a sketch on the page come to life into something that was tangible, something that someone could wear and you could proudly say that you made it. You created something.

 

It had been at a wedding that Mila had first decided she loved fashion. One of her cousin’s weddings that she had flown back to Rabwah, during the summer between 5th and 6th grade, had been the most extravagant and glorious events of her life, she loved the colours and the way the westernisation, her cousin had learnt from living in Birmingham for so long, seeped into their culture and made it work. She loved everything about it and couldn’t stop herself from dreaming of her own wedding in the future, what she would wear but most importantly it made her want to design her own outfit. She didn’t want something that just anyone else could get. She wanted to go into bespoke fashion, as she had learnt the title around 9th grade by asking one of her teachers about the fashion industry, because she liked things being unique. Haute couture was her calling and she knew she couldn’t build a career on her own back at the local community college. So she left for London, and there she was in Bath looking up at Pixie Elise Locke who strolled into the studio wearing large rimmed sunglasses in spite of the spiteful cold that had targeted the students working when Pixie had swung the door open.

 

“Hey!” Pixie beamed, pushing her sunglasses into her hairline like a hair band, “I brought gifts!”

She waved a cup of mocha in her hand that was holding down the brown paper handles of a bag with the Cafe’s logo on it.

“My saviour!” Mila gushed, meeting her halfway and taking the goods off her.

“Hey Pix!” Max yelled, annoyingly and breaking Pixie’s wide eyed stare from Mila and over to where he stood with Eleanor.

“Oh hey you two!” Pixie grinned, laughing nervously.

She ran her now free hands down her horizontally striped navy Sacai dress that clung to her chest with the bateau neckline not giving her any breathing room. She busied her eyes, nervously dancing around the environment as Mila popped a chunk of the muffin into her mouth.

“S’jacket Harold’s?” Mila asked with her mouth full before chugging down the mocha like her life relied on caffeine.

Pixie nodded, “Yeah! It’s a Fred Perry,” She looked at Mila like she had gotten the moon for her, like she had gotten a lasso around the earth and was drawing it in – just for her - in spite of all the natural disasters that moving the moon closer to earth would cause.

“Oh he’s sick!” Max added, shrugging on his coat and giving Eleanor a meaningful look.

“You two going?” Mila asked, furrowing her brow.

Eleanor pulled her hair out from underneath her coat and nodded, “Yeah, we’ve still got a shitload to finish but there’s always tomorrow!”  
“Until then,” Mila smiled as the two of them walked past her, portfolios clasped in either hand.

“See you two,” Eleanor said, free hand around the edge of the wooden door, “M could you put my work on the rack before you leave? Ori will be back at 7 to lock up, so be gone by then!” She informed Mila before slinking off out of the studio, the sound of her heels against the stairs audible as the door slowly swung to a close.

 

“So it’s just us,” Pixie grinned, tugging a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Seems like it,” Mila laughed, placing the brown bag onto her worktop, “Um I’ve just got to finish these but if you get the options up, or even just the website then I’ll come over in a bit.”  
Pixie coughed loudly, putting her hands on her hips and looking hard at Mila, “Notice anything different about me?” She huffed.

Mila chuckled, “Yes, your hair,” Mila jutted her chin in the direction of Pixie’s head, “It’s very Aguilera in 2000.”  
Pixie’s lips stretched in this huge smile, her teeth glistening and her eyes sparkling as though Mila had just paid her the biggest compliment of her entire life. She tucked the same strand of hair back behind her ear and walked around the studio, Pixie drifted her fingers over the ‘music laptop’ which was just an old Acer which everyone put their music on so that they could listen to a whole mix of music during the time they worked. She figured out what it was, putting a stop to the All Time Low that had been playing – courtesy of JB – and silence filled up the room, the only sound that eviscerated the quiet was Mila making notes on her design. An electronic sound filled the room right to the brim as the sound fluctuated with the increased increment Pixie was setting it to. Mila turned on her stool, smiling as Pixie headbanged to the electropop that she didn’t recognise. Pixie seemed to always be playing a lot of pop music for someone who claimed to like indie stuff.

“What’s this?” Mila asked standing up to get a gold gel liner.

“The Wanted,” Pixie smirked, “Nathan’s band.”  
“Oh isn’t that curly haired guy from Strictly from the band?” Mila hummed as she returned back to the desk that was splattered with paint and indented with knife marks.

Pixie nodded, “Jay,” She told her, “My dad helped produce this song.”

“Wow, really?” Mila murmured her tone still in amazement but a diluted attempt seeing as her main focus was not fucking up drawing the outlines of the flowers.

“Mmhmm,” Pixie giggled, dragging a stool in front of Mila and taking her ipad out of her Balenciaga handbag.

“What is it your dad does again?” Mila asked, screwing up her brow as she gently glided her pen over the page.

Pixie laughed a she tapped in her password, “He’s a music producer, friend of the industry in general. He’s currently working with Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Big Sean and uh Kanye West though, mainly. He also does a bit of like consulting like a personal manager for models... how he met his current girlfriend.”  
“Wow so he does like a lot,” Mila mused, looking up once she was finally done going over the flowers.

She looked up at Pixie, who was just waiting, expectantly with her ASOS account logged into in front of her on her ipad.

“You could say that,” Pixie smiled small.

“What do you think of her? Your dad’s girlfriend,” Mila asked, polite as ever as she brought out a black fineliner to go over the outside of the jacket.

Pixie tilted her head, “Daphne is.... nice. She’s Cyprian and Vietnamese, bloody gorgeous and she is in her mid 30s so it’s not like she’s my age or anything. Kind of demanding but she gives me good advice.”

“Such as?”   
“How to deal with a shitty boyfriend.”  


Mila took the fine liner off the page, capping the pen and looking at Pixie, her expression softening. Pixie had never openly talked ill of Seth but maybe she was finally broken. Even if Harry made a comment about him, or Orla or Calum, Pixie would always come rushing to his defence but Pixie had just called him shitty and was acting like she had always thought of him this way.

“What happened, Pixie?” Mila asked gently, pushing her work to the side and leaning across the expanse of tired wood.

Pixie went silent, tearing her eyes from Mila and looking down to her ipad.

“So I was thinking a bodycon dress,” She said in a small voice.

Mila nodded, understanding, “Colours?”  
“Red would be nice,” Pixie replied, shoving the ipad into the middle of the table.

“Cleavage?” Mila continued as she took the ipad, fingertips brushing over Pixie’s.

Pixie scoffed, “Not really avoidable for me now is it?”

Mila laughed gently, tapping onto the screen, “I’ll get a few options up and you can put El’s work on the rack, yeah?”  
Pixie nodded enthusiastically, jumping up and getting to work. Mila wrapped her hand around the now kind of lukewarm coffee, recoiling a bit as it hit her tongue – not as satisfying as it had been 10 minutes ago. She downed it anyway, not wanting to upset Pixie. Pixie was carefully holding onto the canvas and walking toward the old rack with as much precision as possible. Mila smiled at her fondly putting her head in her hand, propping her jaw up as she watched Pixie as she jogged back from the rack, grinning.

“What?” Pixie smiled at her dopily, sliding her sunglasses off and putting them onto the desk.

Mila bit her lip, looking at Pixie through her eyelashes, “Nothing...”  
Pixie laughed, tracing her fingers over her face. She somehow managed to hoist herself up, bringing her knees pressed together on top of the stool so she was able to kneel over the desk to see what Mila was doing.

“What’s the theme?” Mila asked, batting Pixie’s hand away.

“Sexy,” Pixie told her, winking.

Mila tried her hardest not to scoff, she knew that Pixie didn’t need a hot outfit to make her sexy but Pixie seemed hell bent on getting what she wanted. Every dress she showed to Pixie, ranging from sparkly pink to lacy red to just anything with a plunge neckline all received the same answer: Nah. Mila couldn’t even get annoyed because Pixie was just rambling on about how important this performance was during the time they were spending searching. It was her first assessed performance and her teacher had told everyone to do a performance in a way that people often didn’t view them so Pixie had gone for sexy. The venue was in an art gallery a city 30 minutes over and a couple production students were doing it up for their own course, Zayn and his class were having their work exhibited inside so Pixie had been driving with Zayn down their every other day for checks. It had been two weeks since the music video and Christmas was getting nearer. Not that mattered much to Mila; it just meant she might be spending her holidays with Zayn’s family up in Bradford since she wouldn’t have the income to go to the States seeing as all her funds were going towards LFW. Pixie was excited for Christmas, she was spending it with Harry’s family and Orla and Calum would be joining them so that meant she was going to have quality time with her favourite Styles – Gemma. It was a constant teasing between Pixie and Harry that Pixie preferred his sister to him and she was just stuck with him because they were closer to each other in age. He always tried to say he preferred Nathan to her but that just resulted in Pixie pressing sloppy to his parabola hairline whilst having a vice like grip around him. It was nice, Pixie’s relationship with the Styles-Twist family kind of like Mila’s with the Malik’s. Doniya loved Mila the minute they had met, in fact all his sisters did. They even had a little Whatsapp group chat so they could keep in touch during the times they were apart. Mila loved Zayn’s family just as her family loved Zayn. It was nice.

  
“Let’s order this one!” Pixie squealed, her eyes lighting up as she looked at it.

“With your Louboutins?” Mila asked, feeling as enthusiastic as Pixie looked.

“Yes! And I have a gold clutch,” Pixie gushed, pressing ‘Add to bag’.

“You’re going to look amazing!” Mila laughed, reaching forward to cup Pixie’s jaw in her hands.

Pixie stopped talking, just looking at Mila with those big eyes and her lips stretched far in the most gorgeous, happy smile Mila had ever seen. The two of them just stayed like that, smiling at each other as though nothing else mattered in the world because they were so enamoured by each other’s presence. If Mila was honest it was overwhelming because she though the only way that the whole thing could be broken was by them kissing. But that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

“Miss Hussein?” An Australian accent interrupted them.

They pulled apart, Mila saw her teacher, Oritsè standing in the door frame, his large brown eyes looking at her accusingly. She bit her lip as she pulled away from Pixie even further, recoiling like a cat that had been scared. Ori wasn’t an unreasonable guy; he was pretty good and always helped those in a crisis. She revered him, to an extent. He had worked for ELLE Australia but had decided to come to England to teach. Oritsè stared at them, he was a short round gentleman with Caribbean parents that he spoke of happily whenever the class were having a particularly slow day and had a neat shaved haircut. He was annoying at times with his refusal at referring to his students by their first names and his habit of eating food during class or fanning himself during the summer, but Mila loved him.

“Yes, Ori?” Mila asked as she hastily tried to organise her discarded work whilst Pixie whipped around to look at him, cheeks turning bright red.

“You know the rule,” He chastised as she scampered around the studio to put away her pens and paper whilst also shoving her drawings, as carefully as possible, into her see-through portfolio.

“Yeah,” She nodded, pushing the portfolio into Pixie’s open hands as she snatched the empty brown bag and coffee cup to slam dunk them into the trashcan.

“Can we please stick to them,” He sighed as Mila began to pull on her coat.

She strode up past Pixie, taking the portfolio back from her and taking Pixie’s hand in the other to lead her to the door, bowing her head.

“Sorry, Oritsè,” Mila murmured again as she edged out of the studio.

“Please don’t bring your girlfriend here again, Miss Hussein!” He shouted as she began jogging down the stairs, scarf and hair flying behind her.

Pixie started giggling as she followed Mila down the flight of stairs, “Not my girlfriend!” Mila screamed back at him, heat rising to her cheeks.

 

Mila had never wanted to escape a situation more than then. They stood outside of the building, the beige bricks behind them as they collapsed in giggles on the steps. Mila held onto one of the black iron bars that fenced off the front of the house, breathing heavily as she smiled at Pixie, shaking her head.

“Well he seems nice,” Pixie beamed, standing up slowly in front of the Georgian townhouse.

Mila gave her a menacing look, “He’s lovely!” She assured Pixie whilst shoving her hand into her Sainsbury’s bag for life to retrieve her car keys – or well Niall’s car keys but he was lending her his car since she had a lot to carry.

“I love it here,” Pixie mumbled, twirling around to get a view of The Circus.

It was a lovely example of Georgian architecture, divided into three segments in a circular shape, each segment facing one of the other three segments so that wherever you stood you could easily see the classic facade. It was a classical Palladian design, and Mila could easily see why Pixie loved it.

“The little friezes are lovely, the Grecian Doric ones especially,” Pixie sighed happily, “Daddy would love it.”

“You should come here more often,” Mila hummed as she strode down the steps.

Pixie did the same, striding down the steps to the red Volvo parked near the small garden in the central area which had a group of plane trees overhanging the iron gates, “Maybe I should.”  
She gave Mila this cheeky grin as she hopped into the car.

“Can we go to yours?” Pixie asked as Mila started the car.

“Thought we were picking up Orla and Li?” Mila muttered, as she [backed up], looking over her shoulder.

Pixie shrugged, “Haz has a car, he can pick them up.”  
“Alright, we’ll go to mine then,” Mila smiled softly.

Pixie returned the smile, with wide eyes and a few nibbles of her front teeth on the thickness of her bottom as she tilted her head at Mila, reminding her all too much of a puppy she had seen whilst taking a detour at Twerton Pets and Home with Zayn when they were supposed to be doing their weekly shop.

 

Pixie didn’t shut up. Mila was certain of that after spending a half hour drive from one side of Bath to the other. But that was okay. Pixie was funny, she kept making these shit jokes that Mila immediately identified as being Harry’s main influence into her character. When she wasn’t making the cheesiest jokes that Mila had heard in her entire life, and she had spent almost two weeks in close company with Harry (she refused to go back to the flat he shared with Niall after she had walked in on Niall shagging some kid from Nick’s media class), Pixie was singing along with the radio. It was Mila’s usual station, BBC Radio 1xtra with Charlie Sloth, and she was stunned to find Pixie knew the words to any Lethal Bizzle song. She had giggled around the words to Stormzy’s Shut Up with her explanation that Calum always played the show at 7am whilst he got ready for classes. She said he complained that joining a band with his three white friends had deterred him from listening to hip hop. Mila maybe loved Calum a little bit more after that statement.

“Maybe he should persuade the boys to be a bit more hip hop than punk rock,” Mila mused as she drove over the bridge,

“I doubt Michael’s even listened to a Jay Z song once,” Pixie chuckled, arching her eyebrows and brushing her fingers over the dust lining the window opposite her.

Mila burst out cackling, nearly swerving into a silver Peugeot as she did. Shit that was an entertaining image: Michael Clifford nodding his head to the beat of 99 Problems, unironically. Pixie just grinned at her from her accomplishment of making Mila practically snort with laughter. It wasn’t often that she found herself laughing to this extent. Like Zayn, she was refined with her humour but Pixie brought something out in her. Zayn accused her of having a different laugh that only came about whenever Pixie attempted to be funny.

 

Mila still hated Zayn.

 

“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Mila shouted as she pushed open the door to her dormitory.

She rolled her eyes, screwing up her face as the smell of burnt toast wafted up her nostrils causing her to cough.

“Oh hey man!” Zayn gave her a cheerful grin, teeth dotted with specks of bread from where he sat curled up on Harry’s lap.

“Zee!” She snapped storming over past the dodgy living room set up that was just conjoined to the kitchen by a stretch of misplaced brick wall that stood as a slight separation as though the person building the interior got bored halfway through building the property, “There are these things called windows, you shit!”  
“You don’t complain when I smoke,” He scoffed, mouth full of toast.

“Harold, seriously, I expect you to be the responsible one here,” She tutted as she fiddled to open the window that faced more blocks of university housing.

“You can smoke in here?” Pixie coughed, still standing in the doorway where Mila had left her.

“Technically no,” Zayn hummed as he reclined against Harry who was threading his fingers through his once again pink tips of hair.

“Huszayn are just badmans,” Harry chuckled, fondly smiling down at his boyfriend.

“Nice to see you too, Styles,” Mila huffed as she gestured for Pixie to step inside.

“Lovely seeing you, Hussein, there’s some toast in the bin if you’re up for it,” Harry murmured.

When Mila turned around from fixing the window she saw that the reason for his less than coherent tone was because he had decided that pushing his nose and mouth into Zayn’s messy quiff was an acceptable social move. Prick.

“He’s rubbing off on you,” Mila shook a finger betwixt the both of them accusingly.

Harry snorted and Mila instantly realised her mistake, “I mean currently, no, I’m not,” Zayn smirked up at her, obvious amusement dancing in his hazel eyes.

“You two are awful,” Pixie shook her head, tossing her luscious curls over her shoulder.

 

“What are you doing here anyways?” Harry asked, squeezing his arms around Zayn’s waist tighter whilst Zayn shuffled to regain comfort atop him, “Aren’t you meant to pick up Orla and Li?”  
Pixie sniffed, shrugging her right shoulder close to her jaw, “Didn’t feel like it.”  
“Is that your way of telling me to?” Harry asked, keening to Zayn’s touch when he looped his arm around the back of his head to play with the loose curls that dripped from his bun.

Enthusiastically, Pixie nodded as she skipped to Mila’s side. Harry sighed, narrowing his eyes at Pixie before allowing them to close as Zayn continued trying to play with his hair.  Mila couldn’t train the edges of her lips to resist smiling at the two of them. Sure, they were annoying and never seemed to understand that she didn’t really want to be greeted every other morning by seeing the tip of Harry’s dick poking out of his Calvin Klein’s when she was making a bowl of cereal. Regardless of the dick sightings, they were cute. Just cuddled up on the sofa not bothering to do anything but be in each other’s company, as though it was the best thing – Mila couldn’t speak for Zayn on Harry but she had known Zayn for nearly three years and she wasn’t going to sugar coat his social skills that were, in a single adjective: shit. But he did love Harry. It hadn’t been more than a week ago, after the boys had had a date and then a less than scheduled row, a proper big one. Zayn had just crept into Mila’s room, asking in a voice soft as silk if she wanted to smoke with him. He didn’t have to explain why, Mila knew this as she handed him a lighter, because he just lay next to her as they passed a spliff between them. They got high, proper faded and everything was getting more lucid before Zayn had mumbled, “I really like him, M... I just think sometimes I act like a prick and he doesn’t see it? He doesn’t see I love him...” and he had been all starry eyed, he had a preparatory exam tomorrow – a 5 hour art exam – but he was just there with Mila, staring up at her ceiling with the water stains in three corners as moonlight cast shadows through his lashes and thinking about Harry. She wondered, as she tipped a teaspoon of sugar into a slightly chipped spotted mug, if Pixie, in fact if anyone, would think of her like Zayn thought of Harry. She sighed, watching Zayn scroll through instagram and humming the words to a song she didn’t know whilst Harry maintained a flowing conversation with Pixie. She had been making everyone tea and had even not made a comment about Harry asking, with fluttering lashes and dimples concaving into his face, to use the soy milk he had gotten.

“Right,” She murmured, pinching the blue hair band from Harry’s wrist and moving her arms up to tie her hair into a topknot whilst Pixie held the two cups of tea she had made them, “We’re going to my room.”  
“A’ight,” Zayn mumbled, pressing his mug to his lips and blowing gently to cause ripples in the brown liquid, “Hazza and I’ll be leaving in a mo to get Li and La.”  
“Li and La?” Pixie chuckled, looking at Zayn like he was on something.

“Lee-yum and Or-Lah!” Harry nodded, “I came up with it!”  
Mila rolled her eyes, again before steering Pixie to the short corridor that had Mila’s room on one side and Zayn’s on the other.

“Is that incense?” Pixie asked once Mila had opened the door to let her in.

She nodded, “Yeah uh it’s just a mattress,” She shrugged as she crouched down until her ass collided with the sheets covering the mattress, “I had to choose between seeing my family during Eid or getting a bed frame.”

“I like it,” Pixie smiled, sitting next to Mila and taking her mug from between where Mila had crossed her legs, “It’s you.”

Mila scoffed, “What? Cheap?”  
Pixie tutted, shoving Mila in the shoulder causing her to yelp and splutter tea all over her chin, some of just dribbled out of her mouth and onto her mustard yellow blouse, “No! Comfortable and like... Terre à terre.”  
“What?” Mila laughed, wiping at her chest with the pads of her fingers.

“Down to earth,” Pixie smiled happily, leaning over to Mila and snatching a tissue from the box of Sainsbury’s basics atop the stack of records, “Here let me,” She started to gently over Mila’s chest, sticking her tongue out with concentration as she tried to wipe up the tea from over her breasts.

“So you do know French,” Mila hummed, trying not to look down at Pixie wiping her chest like she was carrying out a very important mission.

“Mmhmm,” Pixie murmured, “Créateur de mode.... Fashion Designer.”  
“How would I say, I am a fashion designer?” Mila asked.

“Je suis créateur de mode,” Pixie hummed, “Bonjour, je suis Mila et je suis créateur de mode à l'Université de Bath Spa avec ma petite amie Pixie...”

“Ma petite amie?” Mila questioned, “My small friend?”   
Pixie stopped for a second, taking the tissue away and scrunching it up.

“Yeah sure,” She nodded, bowing her head, “If you like.”

Pixie stuffed her pocket with the tissue, leaning gently against Mila’s shoulder as she swapped the tissue for the ceramic mug. Mila shook her head, pressing her lips to her mug and taking everything in. They fell into silence after that. Luckily, the silence wasn’t awkward, more of a shared respite. Pixie’s eyes didn’t stop moving as she gulped down the tea; it was as though the swallowing of the warm liquid running down her throat and the way her eyes moved were jointed in tandem. Her green eyes lingered a little longer on certain things, like the copies of Vogue, InStyle and Bazaar that Mila had bought the weeks when she got paid just that bit extra in tips. There weren’t many and she always saved up just enough to get the £2 copy of Glamour each month. Pixie had practically every copy of Vogue, the issues from before she had been born and even from when her mother had been born, all stacked up underneath the vanity set in her Devonshire home. She said it was a necessity, not a luxury, because knowing about fashion meant knowing about culture and the era so she couldn’t go without it. Pixie was smart like that. Mila noticed Pixie’s eyes flitter back and forth over the different fabrics and some of the swatches Mila had lain out on the table which was one of the only proper structures in her room since everything else was makeshift. Zayn had asked if she did it because she felt things were temporary, to that she just shrugged and told him to stop being fake deep and spray some walls. But maybe everything was – everything but her fashion which was fiercely protected on a pedestal above everything else.

“Want me to put the mugs away?” Pixie asked, looking at the wall which was draped over with different translucent yellow fabrics that Mila had gotten from the saree shop half an hour from where she lived.

The fabric wasn’t in good enough condition to use to make an actual saree so Mila had given the owners, Aleema and Afia, £30 in exchange for 7 metres of it to use to cover the ugly yellow wallpaper with its golden shimmer. Mila loved it, hanging it up like a curtain and reminding her of her old room back in Virginia. And from the look of admiration on Pixie’s face, she loved it too.

“Yeah sure,” Mila smiled, handing her mug over to Pixie once she had stumbled to stand.

Pixie just smiled down at her, waltzing out the room, curls and ass bouncing. She heard Zayn make a comment at Pixie, nothing that wasn’t clear enough with his naturally muttering Bradford accent but was distinctively sarcastic or teasing since she heard that annoying sniffling laughter that Harry did when he tried to resist full on chuckles. Pixie returned with something which shut him up and caused Harry to full on laugh. Mila shook her head, swinging her legs onto the mattress so she could slump back into her bed. Mila saw Pixie’s ass edge back into the room and under her breath Pixie sung the words to a song that sounded more like the type of music she claimed to listen to.

“[I’m still sleeping with a pillow, under lamplight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mWjiXByClY),” Pixie muttered, her curls tipping over her shoulder and covering half her face as she turned around once she was done backing in, “ _Freezing cold, ‘cause you always like the windows... Opened wide._ ”

Mila arched her eyebrows as Pixie kept singing gently to herself as she made her way to the other side of the bed to lay next to Mila.

“Just so you know, I’ll be here when you make it home,” She finished; somehow warping her soulful tones to this far calmer and restrained from her usual ad-libs and runs.

“What’s that?” Mila asked when Pixie twisted her neck so they were facing each other in such a close proximity, that if Pixie were any other girl that Mila had somehow managed to get into bed with her, that she could kiss her.

“Lewis Watson,” Pixie shifted her body closer, placing her head on the pillow Mila’s head also was on.

 

Mila nodded, her forehead hitting Pixie’s causing them to laugh softly. Pixie stared at her, wistful and with big eyes. She opened her mouth, a noise she made at the back of her throat but then stopped and snapped her lips shut again.

“What is it?” Mila whispered, smiling small at Pixie who looked slightly worried.

“So I uh bumped into Eleanor and Max in Waitrose,” Pixie started, her eyes stuttering to close as though she just couldn’t meet Mila’s eyes but with such a small distance between them she didn’t really have anywhere else to look when she opened her eyes, “We got talking and they told me how Lou got a girl pregnant a bit after we broke up. He’s got a son, Freddie...”  
“Oh Pixie...” Mila murmured, reaching forward to gently run her fingers over Pixie’s cheek.

“We went back to their place and we skyped Louis and Freddie,” She smiled, looking down at Mila’s acrylic nails as they moved from her face, “It was nice, you know? I might go and see him in the holiday...”  
Mila beamed happily, cheeks almost aching with her how happy she was for Louis. Orla had explained to her once before, on the third day of the music video shoots where they were doing any extra reshoots that Landon had advised, that Louis had brought the best out in Pixie. It wasn’t just because she had been younger and therefore slightly less prone to those spells of academia induced depression but Orla said it was Louis because he was like the sun, he made everything brighter - Even things with her mother, which had always been rocky. Orla’s words were always assuring because Mila knew that there was no other person Pixie would spill more to about anything and no other person that knew Pixie better. Unlike Harry, Orla never wore rose tinted glasses for Pixie because they knew every darkened alleyway of her mind that Pixie protected with smiles and sequins and sashaying swirls of her hips. Conversations with Orla were always great because they were blunt and straight to the point in this sarcastic way that you couldn’t help but admire. But even when they spoke about Louis they used the most exaggerated of language as though simplicity wasn’t an object of understanding when describing him, just as it when anyone else spoke about Louis. Mila wanted to meet him just so she could say she met the enigma that was Louis Tomlinson. Although most importantly, Pixie looked happy about it and Mila loved it when Pixie looked like the sun shone out of someone’s ass because what else was better than that?

 

“Who was your first kiss?” Pixie ventured suddenly, “And like was she your first girlfriend too?”  
Mila’s brow knitted, “Oh um... her name was Piper and I met her at this LGBT+ thing, it was shit and the load of us just spent the whole time mocking the guy running it,” Mila explained, fingers delving into the duvet beneath her, “She was beautiful, you know? She was a year or so older than me, didn’t go to my school but I always saw her at that thing. We dated when it shut down but didn’t last long because we realised that we were only together because we were the only girls who liked girls at the thing,” Mila shrugged, “We’re facebook friends now, I think she’s married and has an adopted kid.”  
“Wow,” Pixie breathed out softly, “My first kiss was with this boy Jack Robinson; he knew Harry and he had this blonde hair and I was like fourteen? Kind of late but yeah.”

“Dated Pipes when I was sixteen,” Mila laughed, “There’s no such thing as being late into the dating game. It’s situation.”  
Pixie nodded, smiling happily at her with the expanse of her cheeks tinted red. Their gazes locked and Mila felt the soft exhales from Pixie’s mouth change as she became more confident. Pixie, somehow and completely unbeknownst to Mila, got even closer til there was barely a thin shred of air blocking from each other and her lips twitched slightly. It wasn’t like Mila spent a good proportion of her day staring at Pixie’s lips or anything but she could probably draw them. Even though Mila wasn’t the best at individual anatomy, far better at detailing Baroque inspired patterns amongst the designs usually found in henna onto a pea coat, she felt like she could perfectly draw Pixie’s lips. They just looked so soft like pillows and thick like Mila should bite at them between kisses. The little Cupid’s bow that defined the almost perfect curves that led down to the fullness that was currently trembling, like the strings of her guitar. Her lips were coated in an ample coating of the usual berry flavour she bought in bulk from Too Faced. She knew why she wanted to kiss her. Perhaps it was because Pixie was beautiful. And before she was beautiful, she was kind. And before she was kind, she was eloquent and intelligent. Because she could imagine spending all day with Pixie and never getting bored or going on her phone as a distraction or buffer. Because she always snapchatted Pixie interesting things she saw and Pixie did the same back and now suddenly there were a whole variety of emojis next to Pixie’s snapchat name that dignified her as Mila’s snapchat best friend. Because she didn’t want to just be Pixie’s friend, she wanted to kiss her.

 

And before Mila could register what Pixie was doing, from the tilt of her head and the way her eyes fluttered like a butterfly’s wings to close, those lips were on hers.

 

Pixie has Mila’s head in her hands as she licks gently into her mouth, lips pressing harder onto Mila’s lips which are slow to kick into action and kiss her back. Then it’s Mila’s turn to take control, deepening the kiss and curling her fingers into Pixie’s hair whilst she catches Pixie’s tongue, sucking on it instead of doing much else. Pixie just groaned, her vibrations making Mila just want this to last forever. She’s kissing Pixie. And then she’s not. She’s pulling back, the sound of their lips parting loud and Mila’s got Pixie’s bottom lip between her teeth – trying to hold on. Their kisses slow, to just gentle pecks. It was the type of kiss Mila would not be telling Zayn or Eleanor or Max about. It was something just for her and Pixie. It was the kind of kiss that seemed to eviscerate all elements of sadness from her and replace only happiness. They exhaled fatigued breaths that made up all the time they had lost over the past three months not doing just that. It’s at that moment that Mila remembers why they hadn’t been.

“Pixie...” She said softly, the electricity crackling in the air and Mila’s lips tingled from where Pixie keeps staring.

“Yeah...” Pixie managed but her breathing was even closer to hyperventilation than Mila’s.

“You’ve got a boyfriend,” Mila reminded her.

Pixie chewed at her red-bitten lip and her eyes glassy but desperate as they searched over Mila, “I like girls too.”  
Mila shucked out a nervous breath, watching Pixie’s face and that look she’s giving her that there wasn’t anything out there to be comparable to as it sent a frisson of want up Mila’s spine, “But you have a boyfriend.”  
“I do,” Pixie murmured, “But I can stop having a boyfriend.”  
“You’ll break up with him?” Mila’s breath hitched, “for me... for this?” She gestured between them.

“I’ve had the biggest crush on you since you helped me choose an outfit at fucking 4 in the morning,” Pixie giggled, pressing her face into Mila’s chest, “And Niall got wasted a few nights ago and kind of let slip that you liked me. I had my hunches but I didn’t want to be vain.”

Mila leant forward to kiss her again, just a quick kiss that managed to drag on longer than she had expected and their lips clumsily collided because Mila couldn’t stop fucking smiling as they did so. Pixie had the biggest crush on her. Pixie wanted Mila to like her. Pixie was willing to end a toxic relationship to start one that would be so much better, if Mila did say so herself.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Mila laughed once they had finally pried off of each other, “I’ve had the biggest crush on you since you performed!”  
“You should’ve said something!” They say in unison before breaking off into giggles.

It’s stupid, Mila thought to herself as she just stared at Pixie numbly. It was like a fairytale. But Mila didn’t believe in fairytales – although she could believe in her and Pixie. She could believe in her and Pixie because when she was with her it was like being in heaven and when Pixie spoke her words fell over Mila like stardust. It felt like she was in a movie, like her life was a section of fiction from the latest summer rom-com that would tank because people are pessimists and hated even the made up happiness of others. But no, Mila touched her nose to Pixie’s, this was real life and Pixie Elise Locke maybe kind of liked her.

“I’ll break up with him tomorrow,” Pixie hummed as Mila tucked her curls behind her ear, “And then we can go public on my performance day?”  
Mila nodded happily, “You’re sure about this?” She mumbled uncertainly.

“Of course,” Pixie smiled, “I never wanted to date Seth in the first place and being with you, you’re the first person I’ve been around who doesn’t make me regret what happened with Louis.”  
She can’t even stop herself smiling wide, a mix between proud and eager as she pulled Pixie up so they were both kneeling the bed, still facing each other.

“Well,” Mila smirked, glancing down at Pixie through her bottom row of lashes, “Since you’re practically single... I guess we should make the most of the privacy.”  
Pixie giggled, moving even closer to Mila with her knees digging into the mattress and her fingers biting at Mila’s hips, “I guess we should.”   


Pixie licked into Mila’s mouth. It was slow and intense. Mila could finally put her senses to good use now that she isn’t stunned by the sheer fact that Pixie was actually kissing her; the taste of coffee – sweet not bitter – clung to her tongue as Mila ran her hands down Pixie’s thighs, her hands, that were larger than Pixie’s, trace Pixie’s plump curves with the sort of gentle touch she did to the expensive cashmere when she went fabric shopping. Pixie groaned in response distracted enough for Mila to bite her lip harder. Mila’s licking the sweet taste out of Pixie’s mouth until she’s whining slightly. They’re breathing hard and the kiss is getting messy. Messy but by no means sloppy. Pixie definitely was not Mila’s first kiss, she had confirmed that mere minutes before Pixie had kissed her. But she was by far the best kisser. She felt Pixie’s fingers move from her hips and down to her waistband, just ghosting over her stomach. It was like she was always one step behind Pixie, in spite of being five years older than her because she realised that Pixie was trying to work her jeans open. Hastily Mila pulled her lips off Pixie’s, reaching down to catch Pixie’s wrists in her hands.

“Woah,” She said softly, “I don’t think that’s a great idea, Pix...”  
“But I want to,” She whined, pouting like a child that had been denied their blankie.

Mila shook her head, “Z and Haz are still here,” She reminded Pixie, “We really shouldn’t.”  
Pixie nodded, “Yeah... yeah,” She mumbled, then pressed a kiss to Mila’s lips just because she could, “Can we... just lay here? I just want you to hold me.”  
“Of course,” Mila smiled, looping her arms around Pixie and pulling her close before dragging her down to the mattress, “And hey you can go down on me whenever you like,” She whispered to Pixie, dulcet tones muffled by Pixie’s thick curls, “Just not when our best friend’s are right here, hm?”  
Mila felt Pixie’s cheeks move upwards as she grinned, “Just wanna see if I’m still good at it.”  
“I’m sure you’re the best,” Mila kissed Pixie’s forehead, “Bet you eat out girls like a fucking champ.”  
“That’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me,” Pixie gushed in this tone and these glossed over eyes as she bit back giggles.

Mila shook her head, taking Pixie’s jaw betwixt her fingers and bringing her face up closer to Mila’s so that she could easily glide their lips together as they kissed in this slow easy way, trying to keep excess noise to a minimum - however that wasn’t their most successful attempt.

 

Kissing. That’s just what they did for most of the night. And a little more. Mila sucked love bites onto Pixie’s stomach and left traces in her hair of her touches that she didn’t care if anyone else noticed. Pixie was softer, kind of malleable and whimpered when Mila replaced her lips on Pixie’s with her index finger, telling her to be quiet when she heard Zayn and Harry go into Zayn’s room. Pixie had only responded to that gesture by sucking Mila’s finger into her mouth, just holding it there between her teeth but hollowing her cheeks around the digit whenever there was an indication of conversation occurring with the two boys. Pixie was going to make Mila’s life a living hell and Mila couldn’t wait to find the dotted line so she could sign her name in acceptance.

“We’re going to get Liam and Orla!” Zayn shouted as he jimmied the front door open that always stuck because the university was cheap and neither of them wanted to bother the Dean with complaints.

“Alright!” Mila replied, voice strangled as Pixie moved from her now damp finger up to the column of her neck, “See you guys later!”   
“Yeah,” Pixie added, lifting her lips from Mila’s neck for a moment, “See you tomorrow, Hazza!”  
“Anders booked out a few shops for us?” Harry’s voice carried through over the sound of Pixie’s lips on Mila’s throat.

“Mmhmmm,” Pixie hummed, lips just touching Mila’s skin and not doing anything more than twitch against it, “The Kooples, AllSaints and Jaeger!” She confirmed.

“Oh great,” The sound of the door swinging open gave Mila some elements of release, “I saw a nice waxed jacket there for Zaynie!”

The sound of Zayn and Harry’s conversation drowned out as the door swung shut leaving Mila and Pixie alone.

 

Eventually they stopped doing the bare minimum they could with the restraints Mila had set up even with Zayn and Harry gone. Pixie forced Mila to listen to Lewis Watson’s 2013 ‘The Wild’ EP whilst she sang along and made two uneven French braids on either side of Mila’s head. She got Mila to tell her about her family, her home back in Norfolk because it ‘only fair’ since Mila already knew about Pixie’s entire family. Even though Mila had initially scoffed because it only took a quick search into google to get the latest updates from the Daily Mail on what Nathan Locke had in his basket from the local Tesco’s in Hampstead. But Pixie managed, with tickles and cheesy grins, to get Mila to let a few details slip. Like how her younger brother, Anwar, had been hell bent of becoming a vet after watching Madagascar – Mila described his transcendence from before watching it to after as a numinous experience. Back home she had many pets, much to her mother’s annoyance but she never did complain to Anwar about it, not even when his dog had shat all over the expensive rug Mila’s grandparents had gotten them. Or how her younger sister Alia cried for half an hour after getting her eyebrows waxed for the first time by their auntie Rita and Mila had done nothing other than snapchat the whole thing. Alia had a boyfriend, Timothy Chiang, and Mila was the only person in the family to know about it. Mila was always fiercely protective over Alia since she was the baby of the family and her only other sister in the mess of brothers. The mess of brothers that started with Imran who was the oldest and by far the favourite child since he was an Ivy League graduate married and had a successful career as a doctor in one of the best universities. Mila called him a stereotype but she loved him nonetheless. Mila’s family wasn’t like Pixie’s – and not just based on the cultural differences – as Mila’s family was what typically consisted of a family. Mila loved seeing Pixie’s face light up whenever she told a story about her family that if she had told anyone else would have been too close to anything that could have happened within their own household but with Pixie the simplest thing like a fight over which room they would get when they went on holiday. Pixie just seemed to love listening to Mila talk. She loved listening to Mila talk all the way from Mila’s bedroom down to Niall’s car. Niall’s car where Mila ran her hand up Pixie’s thigh, whenever they came to a stop at the traffic lights or traffic lagged, pushing up the hem of her dress and showing off the bruises laden over her milky thighs that Mila had proudly put there.

 

Unfortunately, it all came to a stop way too soon and Mila just wanted to cry as she watched Pixie dawdle up the steps to her house, momentarily turning back to give Mila a shy wave before disappearing inside.

 

Mila hadn’t wanted to tell him upon her return to the dorm where she hummed mismatching words to Lewis Watson songs Pixie indoctrinated into her mind but Zayn was sat waiting there like an expectant parent with a bottle of beer at his lips and his tone calm when she gave him a confused look. He said that he and Harry had heard her making out with someone and unless she had some intriguing revolving door system with the lesbian bar in Bristol that the Head hadn’t mentioned to him when they first got the place then it meant that the someone was Pixie. He laughed as she rushed out a panicked explanation, pulling her onto the dated floral sofa next to him and ruffling her hair. Whilst he didn’t condone Pixie technically cheating on Seth, he got that it was just her urge to get out of a shitty relationship. He kissed Mila’s head after telling her how happy Harry was about the whole thing. Apparently he had been rooting for the two to date since Mila had fucked up her explanation on how she knew Pixie’s name. He even offered to use his latest pay cheque to buy a less than awful Pop’s Pizza from around the corner to which Mila had no other lawful abiding reason to consent to.

 

Zayn was great.

 

He was great when he let her bunk with him because she didn’t want to be alone.

 

 “M...” Zayn murmured, shuffling about in the darkness, “I think your phone just went off.”  
The glow of her phone drew her away from her thoughts, the mess of her lock screen, a picture of her and Zayn doing what Harry described as ‘Gangsta Poses’  in front of one of the graffiti pieces in the city, covered over with the sheen of grey and a notification of:

 

Instagram       just now

pixl_ just posted a photo of you.

 

“Sorry,” She murmured to Zayn, swiping her phone open and turning down the brightness so not to blind the poor boy any more.

“S’alright,” He burrowed his head into her shoulder, laughing softly out of sheer tiredness.

She waited for the picture to load, the swirling circle mocking her as she waited to see whatever Pixie had posted. Mila held her breath, nose on Zayn’s shoulder and limbs trapped by his body, as she saw the picture finally come up. It was of her and Pixie when they were messing around during the photoshoot from the day at Ellada House, Bryana must have taken it, Mila had Pixie lifted up by her waist and they were laughing like mad and you could feel it radiating through the picture, Pixie with her eyes screwed shut and Mila’s lips separated mid laugh.  They looked so close; Mila laughing into her ear and Pixie’s feet kicking close to Mila’s legs. The caption made Mila want to smile even harder than she had been: Love this one!!!!! #KAMShoot #Devonshire @MilaaaaaaH

 

Pixie loved her.


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS SUPER DUPER UNEDITED RIP IM SORRY IN ADVANCE

Zayn didn’t let up on Mila the whole 50 something hours before they arrived with Harry at the Westwood Art/Music Venue. He carried on about how it was her first date since Diana and how now _finally_ they could go on double dates. Mila wanted to shove him off her when he played with the curls she had taken the entire morning waiting to occur after plaiting her hair the night before but it was all in good fun. Harry tried to act none the wiser when Zayn told Mila that she couldn’t just wear a large shirt as a dress because a) it wasn’t nice enough to wear to his fucking art show and she needed to show some god damn respect for his talent but also because b) the shirt was ugly anyways. She stuck her tongue out at Zayn before dragging Harry into her room so he could help her decide what to wear that would be good enough to be worn in front of Zayn’s shitty art. Harry immediately went for a leather skirt that Mila hadn’t worn since purchasing it as it practically cut off circulation in her thighs but had never bothered to take it back because returning clothes to Topshop never seemed like a rational option to her. She ended up wearing the leather skirt, slightly less tight on the thighs than it had been when she had first gotten it, with a white V neck t-shirt tucked into it. Zayn didn’t hate it when he threw a black choker at her. He hated it even less when he told her to put on the Champagne coloured slim pocket coat that she never wore. The whole time the boys tried to dress her up, Harry giving her tips on how to style her curls like having them mostly thrown over shoulder which was how she ended up leaving the house, she scoffed and said things like: “It’s just Pixie! Pixie’s seen me in fucking Spongebob underwear! It’s not that deep.” But she was kind of happy the boys were taking such an interest in the whole thing.   
  
Especially because the whole drive there she felt like she was going to fucking scream.

 

It wasn’t that Mila didn’t want to be with Pixie, much to the contrary. It was that she wondered if she would be enough for Pixie. She knew that Pixie liked her and Mila, obviously, liked her too but what if that wasn’t enough as she had once thought. Mila was leaving university within a matter of months and Pixie had only just started. Her last relationship had ended because they both agreed long distance would never work but Pixie seemed to live in this fairytale where hope and certainty of aforementioned hope was blatant. Pixie seemed to waltz through life with her cohort of friends whilst Mila skulked in the background with people like Zayn and only showed her face when it was necessary. Mila obscured herself from the light of social events that meant she actually had to socialise but Pixie was the light, she organised social events and thrived off of the energy of other people in a way that Mila found tiring. Maybe it was Diana, Diana Yew who was built like a Sports Illustrated model but was the literal human embodiment of Shoreditch, who was the main reason Mila refrained from being able to let go of herself. The break up with Diana hadn’t been messy because Mila had always told herself she kind of liked her but she always knew there was something missing in her eyes. She felt right with Pixie. Even when they were just friends. She wanted to do things like wake up and see her face, seeing Pixie asleep, to move curls from her forehead with gentle fingers and see Pixie’s face as she relaxed in her dreams. But at that moment all she could do was remember how good it was being with Pixie last night. She closed her eyes as she let the sounds of Zayn and Harry’s menial bickering lap over her as she watched the green hedge walls passed either side of Mila, fizzling down to a mere blur of grassland and houses that were typical to those found in those picturesque postcards she sent back to her family when she first moved to the more rural part of England. Only able to make out the noticeable shapes of the A36 passing over the Midford Brook, bringing back the familiarity to what the SatNav demonstrated as Harry sped down the motorway. She knew Zayn did have his apprehensions about dating Harry when they had first gotten together because after months of having the most infuriatingly disgusting crush on him he had this realisation that dating someone you once put on a fucking pedestal wasn’t the healthiest thing to do. But they worked out. Mila hummed as Zayn helped her out of the car thinking to herself that perhaps she and Pixie could surpass her expectations and be that couple.

 

Hopefully.

 

“Pixie will be backstage,” Zayn said in between pecking Harry’s lips gently as they stood wrapped up in each other in front of the venue whilst Mila rolled her eyes.

She wasn’t even sure how the two of them had ended up like that! Zayn was frantic about whether the critics coming to the event would understand the direction his art was going in since his was the only graphic student’s piece they were showing amongst the fine art that the third year Art students were exhibiting, he had been taken up more words in the space of a second than Mila had ever thought him capable. Harry thought a good way to counteract this would be to kiss the panic out of him. Zayn did seem a lot calmer though.

“I’ll just go find her then shall I?” She stood by the entrance, tilting her hips and giving the side of Zayn’s head a pointed look.

Harry murmured something along the lines of ‘tell her I said hi’ as Zayn bit his lip before releasing it so they could properly make out as Mila entered the building. Inside it looked like a gutted out Church, with stain glassed windows and low hanging wooden beams. Paintings hung from sides of walls in between the large windows that sent striking beams of light through the coloured glass, illuminating the artwork that was adjacent to it.

“Mila Hussein?” An athletic looking black woman strode towards her with a far shorter and curvier mix raced girl in tow, they were both dressed in the same black dress that looked like something an emo tennis player would wear and they both held brightly coloured pamphlets between their fingers.

“Yeah?” She replied brushing her fingers through her hair so that her slightly reduced curls could lay over her shoulder more.

“Pixie told us to keep an eye out for you,” The shorter girl smiled, “She’ll be through that back door past the main stage and third door on the left!”

Mila grinned; “Thanks!” then scampered from where some technicians were building a circular platform in the centre of the room. Everything seemed so well set up, art students blending in with production students and music students behind the scenes, letting their warm ups of vocal runs and breathing techniques be muffled by the doors of their dressing rooms. She got to the third door on the left, although she probably would’ve found it without the girl’s help because there was a shoddily made paper star that was dampened with pink glitter on the majority of it but Pixie was written atop in silver glitter glue in what Mila assumed was Harry’s hand writing. He should definitely let Zayn stick to the arts and crafts in their relationship. She felt a bit empty handed, arriving with nothing but her phone so they could take a few pre show selfies. Maybe she could ask for a re-do as after this they would be proper girlfriends. She pressed her hand to the wooden door, a few specks of glitter falling onto her wrist as she pushed the door open. Sat in front of a mirror with light bulbs glowing around the perimeter of the glass, a couple on the blink and flickering furiously, was Pixie closing her eyes as she had her lips wrapped around a see-through tube that connected to a strange looking ceramic contraption that was atop the desk in front of her whilst Sophia danced around her checking the finite details. She cleared her throat, going over to a waxy looking red sofa as Pixie’s eyes snapped open. Pixie made an enthusiastic noise upon seeing Mila; a strangled sound that sounded like her name was muffled as Pixie still had her lips around the plastic tube. She choked as she pulled off, wiping her lips as Sophia rolled her eyes at her.

“Pixie if you fuck up that lipstick,” She said in a warning tone as she fluffed out Pixie’s curls.

Mila chuckled as she swivelled around to face Pixie and Sophia, smirking at Pixie’s blushing expression.

“What’s she wearing?” Mila asked, leaning forward to twist one of Pixie’s curls between her fingers.

“A mix of this 90 quid Christian Louboutin and a Kat Von D liquid cover,” Sophia hummed batting Mila’s hand away to slide Pixie’s hair into neat little clipped down curls so they could maintain before the performance.  

“I’m not on for like an hour,” Pixie giggled, wiping the red drool from her chin as discreetly as possible so not to be caught by Sophia’s wrath, “You’d still have time to fix it!”  
“Yes but I’m leaving you so Liam can have quality time with his girlfriend and you can have quality time with yours,” Sophia smiled down at Pixie as she strategically wiped where Pixie had done a poor job of cleaning up her spit with a grimace.

“So I’m guessing everyone knows,” Mila laughed as she flummoxed onto the sofa, staring up at the ceiling.

Pixie wiggled her eyebrows at Mila, “Maybe they do!”

“Awful, isn’t she?” Sophia gave Mila a smug look before patting Pixie’s head and making to leave.

Mila laughed, “The worst!” as Pixie flicked her daintily.

They continued to laugh as Sophia exited the room and Pixie slunk from the swivel chair into Mila’s lap to curl up on her thighs. Pixie was wearing a pair of stone grey Stella McCartney ADIDAS track pants and a matching hoodie with the sleeves rolled up over the dress that Mila could just see peeking through the zip.

“Love the makeup,” Mila’s lips twitched.

“Can’t kiss me though,” Pixie pouted, the slightly darker lip liner doing a glorious job of contouring to making her lips look even plumper than they were.

“What if I tried like really, really, really, reaaaaaally gently?” Mila asked, her hands moving to Pixie’s waist as Pixie moved in her lap to face her properly, her knees bracketing Mila’s thighs as she sat on the edge of Mila’s knees. God, Mila loved her thighs. Even under the fabric of the sweats she could feel just wonderfully tight and muscular they were.

Pixie giggled, pressing her forehead onto Mila’s shoulder and letting her lips ghost over her pulse, “Sophia would kill you...”  
“I don’t mind,” Mila shrugged, “Would be worth it....”  
Pixie scoffed, “You weren’t burn by her tongs every day for a week when she first got into beauty therapy!”  
“I think I could take it,” She smirked when Pixie moved her head to face Mila head on.

“Love the hair by the way,” Pixie leant back on Mila’s hands so she could get a good grip of Mila’s fresh curls.  
“Thanks, it’s inspired,” She preened at Pixie’s touch, watching Pixie drift waves between the curls as though there wasn’t anything else of importance to focus on.

“Shit,” Pixie hissed as Mila pressed the heel of her hand into her waist, “Not there, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah, alright,” Mila nodded, rubbing over the area before moving her hands back down Pixie’s thighs, “What happened?”  
“Just hit a table,” Pixie shrugged, rolling her hips slightly and playing with Mila’s hair.

“Pixie!” Harry’s voice boomed as the door opened revealing him, Orla and Calum – who looked very stylish in a flannel that lacked holes and what appeared to be a brand new shirt underneath.

“Pixie!” The athletic girl from before appeared behind the three.

“Me,” Pixie blanched, defeated as she took her fingers from her Mila’s hair and swung her legs off the sofa so that her heels hit the Styrofoam tiled floor

“See you later, babe,” Harry rubbed her shoulder as he strolled past her to take the swivel chair in front of the mirror.

Mila whined as Pixie tried to leave, intertwining their fingers together and tugging her back slightly.

“Sound check, then I’ll be back,” She promised Mila, raising her eyebrows and pouting.

She whined even louder but let go of Pixie’s hand eventually, “I hate to see you go but I love to watch you leave,” Mila murmured as she stuck her bottom lip out and hardened her brow.

“You can’t even see her ass,” Orla laughed as they flummoxed down next to Mila, nudging her shoulder.

“I meant her Louboutins!” Mila shrieked horrified.

“Sure you did, Hussein,” Orla chuckled, smirking.

 

It was only a small collection of students, mostly friends of the performers or artists, but mainly teachers or professional attending the event. Mila was glad Harry had forced her to change because she would not have felt adequate following Zayn’s teacher around to look at the art with him and Harry before the music students were to perform. Zayn’s piece was – in summary – amazing. He had drawn a sketch a few months back which his teacher said was too exceptional to just be in the art show they put up at Sion Hall. So he had been at the Westwood venue drawing directly onto the wall for the past few weeks just to ensure the final piece was as exceptional as the sketch he had shown his teacher. It was a black on white piece, of a hospital patient pushing a cart with a potted rainforest tree which connected to ventilation mask on the patient. When Yael, his curly haired teacher with oval shaped spectacles balancing at the end of her nose, wrapped her arm around Zayn’s neck to give him a proud squeeze and all he had done was chuckle awkwardly in response. He murmured out an explanation on his piece, how it was based on global warming and how we as humans depended on the Earth. He was getting all fake deep on everyone – been hanging out with Harry too much. Harry who was staring at Zayn like he was Michelangelo and had just painted the fucking Sistine Chapel ceiling! Fucking cutie though, Mila had laughed with Harry about the whole thing as they waited for Pixie to get on stage with a few others from her class. Jordan and Harley, or as they went by for their music ‘Rizzle Kicks’, were Pixie’s closest friends - aside from Calum - in her music class. They did a lot of rap and alternative hip hop which was more up Mila’s street but Pixie got on with the two of them so easily because like Pixie they didn’t just join the course to have a bit of banter in their uni years singing songs that would end up on the next Meghan Trainor album.

 

They wanted to be famous.

 

You could tell that from the glamorous movie star curls cascading down Pixie’s shoulder as she strode out to the main hall like the way a supermodel would handle a catwalk, holding a wooden guitar with a sparkly gold strap hanging by her bare thigh, as the patent Louboutin’s click clacked against the steps up to the stage. Behind her two mixed race boys, one with his Afro-carribe hair spiked up and the other with the sides of his head shaved whilst wearing a wide-brimmed black hat, wearing neat simple suits. But then, as Pixie handed the guitar over to the taller guy, Mila was able to see the dress they had decided on together. It was a red latex number with a plunging neckline and the bodice cut out in triangles over either breast – either breast that was practically falling out of the thing latex – and overall was a tight bodycon fit which made Mila feel like someone was stepping on her oesophagus. It hugged Pixie’s body and left nothing to the imagination with how gorgeous Pixie’s figure was. When she bent down to plug the guitar into the speaker everyone got an eyeful which lead to a couple of blokes at the back to yell out ‘oi oi’ which Pixie only responded to with a vibrant blush on her cheeks. She coughed nervously into the mic as she smiled, smiled directly at Mila, whilst the taller guy handed back her guitar and pick.

“I’m Pixie,” She said into the mic once she had slung the guitar strap onto her shoulders.

“’m Harley,” The shorter guy said, tipping his hat back on his head as he stood in front of a black keyboard.

“And I’m Jordan,” The other guy stood standing closest to Pixie.

“We’re going to do a cover to kick the show off,” Harley continued, fingers running lightly over the keys as he spoke into the mic, “We hope you enjoy!”

Pixie just nodded to the boys and started strumming the guitar, keeping time by tapping her foot and she started playing an acoustic version of a Christina Aguilera song. Whilst Mila knew Pixie chose it to fit her teacher’s criteria but also for the shock value. It was something easily recognisable

“ _Ring the alarm_ ,” She sang with the boys, “ _and I’m throwing elbows_ ,” She sang in a stronger more solitude tone, like she was the only one on stage with Harley and Jordan as her back up.

They repeated the lines several times, causing people to hoot and cheer as they recognised what Pixie was singing when she rushed the first verse in a sultry fashion, her voice dropping and Mila clapping helplessly because, shit, Pixie was exceptional!

“ _Sweat dripping over my body, dancing getting just a little naughty,_ ” She fixed Mila with a heavy-lidded look, “ _Wanna get dirty.., it’s about time for my arrival...._ ”

It was an interesting look to see Pixie so restrained by the instrument but still swaying her shoulders to the beat she worked up. Pixie’s fingers worked on the guitar like they had a mind of their own, she never even cast her vision from the crowd to check she wasn’t about to make a mistake like Mila knew she would do if it were her up on that stage. She closed her eyes; lips so close to the microphone to give a raspier effect her voice always rose above when it rolled smooth as molasses. It was a nice little acoustic cover that highlighted Pixie’s talent, not only as a leading talent shining in the foreground as she played guitar and gave out these breathy little ‘Ah’ sounds but also as a team player, someone who could harmonise well and not only lead with her pacing but follow the sound of the piano that Harley was playing. Jordan went on to take main vocals, rapping a verse to the speed Pixie’s fingers moved and her voice backed up alongside Harley’s; mixing in her timbre with his baritone.

“ _But I remember the telling the path was never in question_ ,” He spat his lyrics hard at fast, bringing his own alternative hip hop vibe through the cover, “ _We're artists at work and my color don't need you-“_

The venue shook as all the music students, Pixie and Calum inclusive, shouted, “America spelling!”

Then it was over. Pixie finished up the final verses and three ‘Thank Yous’ echoed through the sound system and Pixie disappeared backstage whilst the boys took centre stage to perform their own piece – a cover of Summertime Sadness with a whole lot of that alternative London music scene influence. It was nothing Mila would have expect off them since their music that Pixie had shown her before definitely was alternative but more hip hop and a huge amount of percussion lining their witty lyrics. Their teacher, who so far was a no-show, certainly had students who knew how to meet their required stimulus. She remembered how Zayn got into heated arguments every week with his art teacher because of how narrow the stimuli was and how it didn’t let him ‘delve into his artistic potential’. He got over it - eventually. As of that day, Zayn and his teacher hadn’t argued in forty something hours.

 

Calum was on next singing a predictable artist like Bring Me The Horizon but the way he pressed his thick lips to the microphone and rasped out the lyrics whilst the rest of his band stood around playing instruments, his in-ear hanging out so he could hear the crowd’s silence, showed a far softer side to him that made Mila want to take back all the times she had thought he was somewhere in between boring and estranged. Orla cheered wildly when they were done, pulling Calum off the stage and giggling into his neck as they kissed his sweaty skin and told him he wasn’t allowed to leave them like Pixie did. He had his own solo song to do after Pixie’s but apparently Orla was going to keep him hostage. He complied; knowing that once a certain long haired camera-wielding idiot came along Orla would melt off of him. The rest of the show was good, mainly covers and everyone exhibited the same elements of talent but never to the extent that Pixie had demonstrated. Not even once. Maybe Mila was biased but since Pixie had gotten off stage the ratio of those on their phones versus those not was seriously out of proportion. Luckily Mila was bringing up the side for ‘Not on phones’ the second she saw bouncing curls and that fucking red dress.

 

“Hi,” She pulled the latex down over her soft stomach as she spoke into the mic, “I’m going to perform a song I wrote called Nasty with the help of the lovely, what we call here in commercial, proper music students!” She gestured to her band and laughed, snaking her hand around the stand and smirking. And smirking directly at Mila. Mila who felt like a fucking puddle.

The band took that as a signal to start. It sounded all old school, more like the stuff Pixie described her music influences as, with the brass band and brassy overture whilst Pixie nodded her head and shook her hips to the beat. She ran her hands up that mic stand until they both secured around the shaft of the mic as she pulled it close to her lips.

“I _was sitting all alone, yeah a lot on my mind I felt a tap on my shoulder and I rolled my eyes_ ,” No wonder she had been practising all those vocal runs into that Evian bottle of water earlier with the power she was using to belt out notes in that song, “ _I wasn't in the mood for another man telling me lies... But how can a girl say no when you flash that sexy smile?_ ” She fucking winked at Mila – did she want to give the girl a bloody heart attack?

Pixie rolled her hips forward until they hit the metal of the mic stand, giving the thing a not so explicit pole dance - she fucking violated that mic stand.  But by the time she got to the chorus, she was snatching that mic from the stand and jumping off the stage, ad-libbing every other word in excess but not in a way that made it seem like she was forcing it or showing off. She was just being Pixie. Pixie with the talent to make the congregation of people to watch the music students perform separate as she strutted over to the smaller circle stage in the centre of the hall, running her fingers over random male torsos and standing close, too close, to men who were far taller and muscular than she was but she controlled them with this hypnotising gaze she held so gallantly like she was a siren.

“N-A-S-T-Y,” She leant down to spell out the letters into the cotton of some guy’s white t-shirt before snapping back and twirling around, “ _You’re nasty and baby I don’t mind! I love the way you’re talking - nasty! You know you’re just my type!_ ”

She hopped off that stage and was absorbed once again by the crowd yet her performance technique of being the hottest person in the room never faltered - not even for a second. Pixie Elise Locke wore confidence well; it looked as good on her repertoire like she had a PhD in it or something. She pushed through the crowd, all sets of eyes following her where they had only minutes prior been scrolling over their Twitter feeds.

“ _What's your fantasy?_ ” She was next to Mila but directing her question to Zayn who was smirking down at her as she twirled around, pressing her back to his and grinding on him like they had done for the shoot, “ _Tell them all to me, don't you be afraid, share your nasty secrets, baby, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!_ ” Her voice was rising in pace but more bassy and direct as she snaked her fingers over the back of Zayn’s neck, just holding him and using him like a prop. The whole thing was hypnotic to watch and from Zayn and Pixie’s expressions they both knew. Pixie knew she had it. Pixie knew what she was capable of when she swayed her hips in that teasing way as she pushed Zayn away and strode back to the stage. 

“ _N-A-S-T-Y, you’re nasty_ ,” She sang once she was back on the stage, helped up by one of the males who had stalking her like she was prey from the moment she had gotten off the main stage, and she posed, “Boy you’re just some nasty!”

Pixie threw her head back, chest heaving once she could finally relive herself after having to control her breathing for so long. When she finally tilted her chin back, having caught her breath, Mila noticed that she’s flushed and under the grey strobe lights, bleaching her blonde hair with a wintery tint, her hair’s curling madly about her head. She flashed a shy smile at the crowd, still lapping up the applause with sweat glazing over the highlight on her cheekbones and around her slightly raised collar bones. Mila’s lips tingle, tingle violently with the urge to press a kiss to Pixie’s lips and show off that _fuck yeah_ she’s her girlfriend! Thank You’s tripped from Pixie’s lips into the mic, her voice stumbling out of the sheer power of the reactions but she was laser focused on Mila, exerting all of her condolences onto her. Mila could hardly bear it any longer. She was practically itching to get close to Pixie, after having all their intimacies and private moments tacked off as just platonic she was all for erasing the platonic nature of their friendship as soon as possible.

“I’d like to thank Zayn,” She said into the mic, voice wobbling as she gestured at him with his hair slightly messy – courtesy of Pixie, “If you would all kindly make a huge fucking buzz about his piece, which is project number 078! He’s also featured in my music video for Kill A Man which is available to watch on my mate Lan’s youtube channel, LandonsLondons! Many thanks, again and all the love, as always!”

Then she’s off stage. She’s off stage and she’s not going backstage but instead is swooping down towards Mila. Fortunately, Mila caught her, lifting her up high in her arms as she squeezed Pixie like she was afraid that all forces of nature would be there to drag her away. Pixie pressed a soft kiss to Mila’s cheek, reminding her of the first kiss Pixie had ever given her back on the night they first met, the feeling of Pixie’s pillowy lips never changing and ever present even once Mila had set her on the ground so her friends could flood her with compliments and assorted friendly gestures. Though Mila wasn’t taking centre stage as the person Pixie was adorning with her usual easy charm and dazzling smiles, she was still admirable. But that was just Pixie, wasn’t it? Pixie was just a great person to just like sit and kind of just admire what she was like. Mila had been pining over the girl for two months so that was pretty much the basis of her predicament.

 

“Mila,” She whispered to her softly as they sat on the hood of her car, her fingers intertwined in Mila’s deflated curls as she stared up at the sky.   
“Mmhmm,” Mila responded, voice small as she tried to tuck herself closer to Pixie.

It was nearing ten in the evening; Zayn and Harry were still in the gallery since Harry was stubbornly refusing Zayn to exit the building until he had gotten a sufficient amount of photos of Zayn and his piece from all 360 degrees whilst Orla and Landon were off smoking with Calum and potentially Niall unless he had buggered off with the rest of the 5SOS.

Mila looked over at Pixie, her curls still going strong and framing her face amidst the tie-dye sky – just orange and yellow and pink, all bleeding into one another and setting Pixie in this glorious daze. Zayn had told her, when he was proper off his face during the last Easter break, this rhyme his mum had taught him when he was younger, red sky at night means shepherd’s delight. Mila wasn’t a shepherd, she knew that for sure, but the red sky certainly highlighted a thing, a person, she took delight in knowing.

“You’re staring,” Pixie giggled, ducking her head before timidly lifting it back up and beaming at Mila, like she had hung the fucking moon.

“No ‘m not,” Mila retorted, shaking her head in furious acquiescence whilst a blush rose in Pixie’s cheeks.

“I should be the one staring,” Pixie hummed, removing her fingers from Mila’s hair to gently brush the glossy sheets down and around her square jaw, “You’re... like the moon.” She nodded happily with her conclusion, mumbling words to a tune she had never heard – presumably something she was either writing or something so fucking indie that Pixie couldn’t even show it to Mila yet. Because she did things like that, would send her voice notes on Whatsapp that Mila would have to raise the volume up real high on her shitty Samsung Galaxy to listen to. Often it was of some kid with a warbling voice and raspy tones that outlined why Mila didn’t listen to the same music Pixie did as she found all the artists to be a part of some asexual reproduction clone war with their vocal range – but she would always reply with thumbs up or even a blurry selfie, depending on the circumstance. Sometimes it would be Pixie singing, with Liam or Harry or Niall in the background commenting on the note she reached or twanging a guitar’s strings with ease. Mila knew the boys had a knack for song writing and loved to help Pixie because she was like their little sister.   
“The moon?” Mila watched her with steady eyes under her furrowed brow.

Again Pixie nodded, firm and sure, “Not like the sun, no... I never got why people would say that someone was like the sun? I get the whole like brightness and energy and relying, but you also look at the sun with like squinty eyes, don’t you?” Pixie slathered on casually, her words tumbling out slow and controlled, brow furrowed as she continued, “but the moon is something to admire. It’s something we depend on too but in a more subtle way, like it’s there for you at night when people are most vulnerable, and that makes it a necessity to explore. You, Mila Hussein, are like the moon because you’re glaring or something that some may want to avoid, you’re there and beautiful, strikingly so and yeah... you’re the moon.”  
Mila exhaled slowly. Shit, she had only expected Pixie to say some bullshit about how she was shiny like she did that one time she got shitfaced. Living in Pixie’s head seemed cool, Mila thought to herself as she just smiled dopily at Pixie, like pieces of classic literature painting the walls of the mind and incessant beautiful thoughts ricocheting about, unruly and wild. Pixie said things that people generally didn’t, Harry was the same and she often found herself pondering where the other got the traits they now shared. Mila wondered if, along the line of their relationship, Pixie would pick up some of her better traits.

“Alright Harry fucking Styles,” Mila ended up using her extensive vernacular of A grade high school English skills and courses taken in her late teens summarise into that. Pitiful but from the smile on Pixie’s life it would suffice.

“Don’t tell Zayner, but I caught Haz writing poetry about him,” Pixie giggled, fingers rushing to her lips to stop herself full on laughing.

Mila scoffed, “Don’t tell Haz but I found some of Z’s notes from that creative writing class he takes and half of the pages have little sketches of H!” She told Pixie in the gleeful haze.

“Our lovesick boys,” Pixie smiled, sliding further up the silver hood of her Bentley Continental GT – Mila learnt that Pixie had a massive hard on for cars. They were pretty and held character, each of them slightly similar but the same, she had explained when Mila had asked but had added in a childish giggle: plus they’re shiny! She was a soft little creature, like a puppy, all giggly and sweet. But full of these articulate concepts that glided over her voice, with an accent that simply dripped old money, which made her far more calculating and not all like what you would perceive from preconceptions about pretty blonde girls with classical looks like Pixie. It made Mila want to stare a little harder, try a little harder to focus on Pixie in a sharper mindset so she wouldn’t miss a thing. Mila found she had this blasé attitude, things always seemed a little fuzzy around the edges but with Pixie it was like high definition, constantly.

 

“Can’t believe the night’s over,” Mila said.

“It’s forever,” Pixie corrected.

 When Mila rounded on her to give her an odd look Pixie simply leant forward to kiss her lips, chaste and short lived but the pressure still welcome once it had come. Pixie did talk some shit, sometimes. It always was unexpected when she did spout some bullshit that was nonsensical to anyone who heard it. Harry often returned her little comments with unabashed smiles whilst Orla always tried to get Pixie to tell more, speak more about why glitter was a necessity to all human life or other such things. Pixie would be the sort of person who got philosophical if she were to get high, talking about other dimensions and the intricacies of the universe. It was times like this, when she went off on spiels of strangeness that Mila remembered just how smart Pixie was and frequently when they talked did she only ever scratch the surface of her brilliant mind. Mila wanted to go full neurosurgeon with Pixie and delve into her brilliant mind because every confounding little conversation was stored away in a folder of her own mind titled ‘For Later’ since she never wanted to forget it.

“Shit!” Pixie groaned, running her hands down her face and giving off the same amount of motivational structure as that Dali painting, “I left my charger in my dressing room!”  
Mila shook her head, laughing at her, “Oh, babes,” She cooed, lips twisted into a smirk mixed with absolute fondness for Pixie, “Want to text Haz or Zoom?” Mila inquired as Pixie looked around slightly haywire.

Pixie sighed, “Nope, I’m the only one with the key,” She groaned again, “Be back in a mo’,” She smiled at Mila, gently running her fingers over her forearm before flouncing off into the building muttering angrily under her breath.

She was like a whirlwind, Mila thought to herself as she fished out a packet of cigarettes and her lighter, decorated with tiny silver sharpied mandalas thanks to Zayn, from her coat pocket, Pixie just managed to be everything and overtake even the most complex of situations with stoic strides and arse-kissing smiles because she could. Mila knew, in the back of her mind, that Pixie could literally have anyone she wanted but instead of just anyone she went for someone who was practically the antithesis of who she was. It wasn’t something she felt to question, or even think about too much, since it made her head hurt a little bit.

 

She snorted, shaking her head, amused by her own thoughts, the slender stick dangling between her lips as she saw Zayn and Harry leave the building. Her and Pixie’s love sick boys. Their boys that looked good and complimented each other well. Harry who wore skinny jeans with rips in the knee coupled with his signature beige Chelsea boots and navy blue – almost black – Daniel W. Fletcher shirt under a navy jacket with gorgeous gold buttons that glinted under the moonlight; he somehow managed to make ripped skinnies conform to his general pristine appearance in his mile long legs – god, she loved Harry’s style.  Zayn, on the other hand, was practically deified by Mila in his outfit though. It was simple but effective; just a black button down and tight black skinny jeans that barely furrowed around his thin legs as he strode towards Mila, his hand locked in with Harry’s hitting his thigh every so often. The two of them were both chewing gum, and having a hushed quiet conversation as they moved as a unit, fucking perfect.

“Gum?” She asked, cocking her head as she moved to drop her cigarette to the floor, then moving her head up just to smirk at Zayn, knowingly.

“Yep!” Harry grinned happily, tugging Zayn closer to him as he gave Mila this practically blinding grin that took up his face to such an extent she could barely see the dimples she knew would be digging into his cheeks.

“What’s up with that, Zoom?” She prodded further.

Zayn bit his lip and sighed loudly, look at Harry exasperated, “We’re in the process of getting me to quit smoking,” He tilted his head at Mila’s sceptical expression.

“Like hell that’ll work,” Mila scoffed, leaning back against the hood of Pixie’s car.

Harry tossed a packet at her and on instinct she lifted her arms to catch it, “The fuck, Styles?”  
“You can try too!” Zayn explained as he lifted his free hand to scratch the back of his neck, “Because we’re besties and we’re in this together!” He told her in this schmoozy voice, letting go of Harry’s hand so he could wrap his arms over her shoulders, and nuzzle his face into her neck as she grumbled – not even bothering to push him off.

Zayn was an idiot. An idiot with good future health prospects, but an idiot nonetheless.

“Alright, alright,” She grabbed Zayn by his hips and forcibly removed him even though he practically had her in a choke hold.

He beamed at her, like a kid in a candy store, and thankfully removed himself from her. What an idiot, she smiled happily at him.

 

“Aye up!” Niall’s voice chortled as he returned back from behind the chapel with Orla, Landon and Calum, smoke drifting out from his lips as he still held his cigarette between his fingers with the embers glowing orange by his nails, “We heading back yet?”  
“Waiting for Pixie,” Mila said as of when Zayn had slunk back to Harry, like a cat.

Orla scrunched up their face as they strolled along the large stone slabs alongside Landon, “Where’d she go?”   
“To get her charger,” Mila said slowly, then scrunched up her face too.

It had been more than fifteen minutes and grabbing a charger was a task that took barely a second.

“Her dressing room?” Orla asked nodding their head back to the venue.

“Yeah,” Harry nodded, “We saw her go past?”  
“Maybe her teacher’s catching up with her?” Zayn said hopefully.

In the corner of her eye Mila saw the power couple squad – Sophia, Liam, Sage and Owen – jogging towards them, Sophia jogging as best she could in those insane classy heels of hers, Liam looking like the vein throbbing in his forehead was seconds away from bursting. She had never seen Liam look so genuinely peeved, even when he did he just looked like a disgruntled puppy. The girls, meanwhile, looked fucking murderous. Mila anticipated the release of their kickass blockbuster masterpiece that involved defeating sexist pigs and burning men with hot tongs.

“Lads,” Liam addressed them with a fiery shout, “You’ll never guess whose fucking car we just saw!”   
Harry barely had time to turn before Liam had his fingers clung to Harry’s shirt as he hissed, “Seth’s here!”  
“Bollocks!” Orla yelled, grabbing Mila’s wrist and pulling her into the Chapel.

 Mila’s thoughts were clumsy just falling over each other as she struggled to kick start any sense of co-ordination in her mind. She was at a loss, a loss for coherent messages being aligned in the transcripts inside her head. Because she understood now, she understood that Seth was a shit boyfriend but didn’t everyone have at least one person they had dated who wasn’t worth shit? Pixie could fend for herself, it was one of the first things she had told Mila that night back in Queen’s Square. Mila knew, Mila could see it so blatantly, Pixie was a charmer and could talk her way out of anything because _fuck_ she was Pixie! But Orla seemed afraid. Orla who she had seen argue with men far taller, far muscular, far older, far scarier than them over stupid things like pushing into their shoulder or ordering them a drink because _fuck no_ was Orla Perry having shit like that! But Orla looked fucking terrified. It was unnerving to say the least. Harry was at her side, dragging Zayn along with him, Calum and Landon following, cursing under his breath. It felt like a wave, a wave crashing down on her and overwhelming her because she felt lost, lost in everyone else’s thoughts and feelings concerns. She lost Orla’s hand, finding Zayn’s instead because Harry had started towards Orla so that he could take their hand as an attempt to consol them, Calum doing the same. She had to centre herself, had to find something to focus on but everyone just ran around the building, in the moment every detail is so drastically blurred it felt like Gerhard Richter painting, the one with all the colours bleeding into one another until they become something else, that’s how it felt. She had nothing to anchor her because she didn’t know where Pixie was. Pixie had become her anchor. One way or another Pixie had become her special something that had kept her from being so reclusive and had made her want to be something around people more than those in her environment she was forced into friendship with or Zayn, lovely Zayn.

 

_Bang!_


End file.
